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fap  (Efctoarfc  UoiulanU  §i 


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THE  PROSE  OF  EDWARD   ROWLAND   SILL. 

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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  NHW  YORK 


THE  PROSE 

OF 

EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

WITH 

AN  INTRODUCTION  COMPRISING 

SOME  FAMILIAR 

LETTERS 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
IIOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
,  Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT,   IQOO,  BY   HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  It  CO. 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


THE  PROSE 

OF 

EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 


223957 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION vu 


l^atttre 

OUR  TAME  HUMMINGBIRDS r 

A  RHAPSODY  OF  CLOUDS 25 

CHEERFULNESS  OF  BIRDS 37 

THE  RED  LEAVES  ON  THE  SNOW     ...  41 

THE  EARTH-SPIRIT'S  VOICES 46 

HUMAN  NATURE  IN  CHICKENS.        ...  51 

A  NEW  EARTH  IN  THE  OLD  EARTH'S  ARMS       .  54 


literature  anft  Criticism 

SHAKESPEARE'S  PROSE 61 

AN  IMPRESSION  OF  BALZAC       ....         86 

THREE  SONNETS 93 

THE  CHARMS  OF  SIMILITUDE  ....         99 

BOOKS  OF  REFUGE 103 

THE  MOST  PATHETIC  FIGURE  IN  STORY  .  109 
GERMAN  LYRIC  POETRY  vs.  FRENCH  .  .  .117 
THE  CLANG-TINT  OF  WORDS  .  .  .  .  123 
THE  OBJECTIONS  TO  SPELLING  REFORM  .  .129 
PRINCIPLES  OF  CRITICISM  ....  132 
A  PRIVATE  LETTER  ....  .164 


vi  Table  of  Contents  • 

fhufo 

MANAGEMENT  OF  THE  MIND  WHILE  HEARING 
Music  .........    I79 

CAN  TUNES  BE  INHERITED?     .       .       .       .        186 

nto  €t[)tcg 


INDIVIDUAL  CONTINUITY      .....  igo 

WHAT  DO  WE  MEAN  BY  "RIGHT"  AND  "OUGHT"  201 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  INTERRUPTIONS         .        .  235 

THE  BREAD-AND-BUTTER  MOMENTS  OF  THE  MIND  238 

THE  SLIPPERINESS  OF  CERTAIN  WORDS        .  242 

THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PLANK  AT  SEA         .       .  246 

THE  MIND  AS  A  BAD  PORTRAIT  PAINTER     .  250 
THE  FELT  LOCATION  OF  THE  "  I  "     .        .        .254 

WHAT  is  THE  OLDEST  THING  IN  THE  WORLD  ?  257 
THE  FREE  WILL  OF  THE  BONFIRE     .       .       .263 
THE  INVISIBLE  PART  OF  THIS  WORLD  WE  LIVE 

IN  ..........  *7o 

(Situation 

SHOULD  A  COLLEGE  EDUCATE?    ....  285 

life 

WANTED  —  A  FRIEND   ......  310 

ROMANTIC  DISPOSITIONS   .....  318 

THE  GOOD    THINGS   OF  OUR    FRIEND  AS   HIS 

COMPENSATIONS  .......  324 

CHOOSING  A  CLASS  OF  PEOPLE  FOR  EXTERMINA 

TION     .........  329 

THE  NOUVEAU  CULTIVE"    .....  332 

THE  LEFT-OVER  EXPRESSION  OF  COUNTENANCE  336 

THE  KEEPER-IN  AND  THE  BLURTER-OUT  .       .  342 

OLD  MORTON      .......  346 


INTRODUCTION 

|HE  poetry  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill 
has  been  collected  under  three  sepa 
rate  titles,  Poems,  The  Hermitage  and 
Later  Poems,  and  Hermione  and  Other  Poems. 
Although  he  wrote  poetry  with  ease,  and  chose 
the  form  often  for  the  expression  of  a  mood,  a 
passing  fancy,  a  sudden  thought,  there  was  in 
his  nature  such  a  demand  for  expression  that 
it  was  impossible  for  him  not  to  use,  and  with 
the  greatest  abundance,  the  more  facile  form 
of  prose.  His  prose  ranged  from  the  direct 
speech  of  letters  to  the  careful  structure  of  an 
elaborate  essay;  but  whether  he  was  writing 
informally  or  formally,  there  was  little  attempt 
to  suppress  that  eager  personality  which  made 
him  one  of  the  most  animated  of  men  of  letters. 
Not  that  he  betrayed  the  least  bit  of  egotism  ; 
the  charming  quality  of  his  nature  was  his 
friendliness,  which  led  him  to  give  unceasingly 
to  others  and  to  take  the  keenest  delight  in 
comrades.  It  was  this  spirit  of  sharing  his 
goods  which  made  him  examine  himself  as  -he 
examined  nature  and  literature  and  music,  and 


viii  Introduction 

unhesitatingly  deliver  the  result  in  terms  of 
whimsical,  earnest,  and  unreserved  confession. 
He  had  an  unquenchable  curiosity,  but  it  was 
so  utterly  devoid  of  envy,  hatred,  malice,  and 
all  uncharitableness,  that  it  never  excited  these 
elements  in  others,  and  made  him  a  sort  of  lay- 
confessor  to  many  souls.  And  when  he  came 
to  announce  freely  the  results  of  his  scrutiny, 
he  made  them  so  impersonal  that  the  most 
prying  neighbor  could  not  have  detected  their 
origin,  yet  so  graphic  and  shrewd  that  they 
were  not  lost  in  vague  generalities. 

His  habit  of  mind  and  his  hatred  of  petty 
personality  led  him  to  prefer  in  most  cases 
either  a  pseudonym  or  the  still  more  grateful 
shelter  of  anonymity.  He  enjoyed  especially 
the  hospitality  of  the  Contributors'  Club  in  The 
Atlantic  Monthly.  The  method  of  this  table- 
talk  especially  pleased  him,  for  it  exactly  suited 
his  own  way  of  dashing  off  impromptus  of 
prose,  mingled  sometimes  with  ready  verse, 
and  the  shortness  of  the  essays  permitted  in  it 
was  adapted  to  the  little  flights  of  fancy  and 
fun  in  which  he  delighted.  He  was  therefore 
a  very  frequent  contributor,  sometimes  having 
three  or  four  diverse  bits  in  a  single  number, 
and  provoking  by  his  light,  incisive  attacks 
more  responses  probably  than  any  other  mem 
ber  of  that  game  of  blindman's  buff. 


Introduction  ix 

It  is  largely  from  the  Contributors'  Club  that 
the  contents  of  this  book  are  derived.  That  is 
to  say,  the  greater  number  of  papers  is  drawn 
from  it ;  the  longer  ones  are  sometimes  from 
The  Atlantic,  sometimes  from  papers  printed 
on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  sometimes  from 
papers  read  but  not  printed.  The  division 
under  different  headings  is  intended  merely  to 
classify  rudely  the  mass  of  his  prose  writing. 
The  distinctions  between  the  parts  must  not 
be  looked  for  too  narrowly.  Sill  was  so  ver 
satile  and  his  mind  ran  so  readily  from  one 
aspect  of  a  subject  to  another,  that  it  would  be 
idle  to  ask  for  any  very  hard  and  fast  division, 
but  the  grouping  will  serve  to  show  something 
of  the  range  which  his  mind  took.  No  attempt 
has  been  made  to  indicate  the  sources  of  the 
several  papers,  nor  to  arrange  the  contents  in 
any  exact  chronological  order.  These  things 
are  of  little  consequence  in  the  case  of  so  free 
a  giver  as  Sill.  One  might  nearly  as  well 
expect  to  date  and  locate  a  good  talker's  con 
versation. 

For  the  sake  of  those  who  may  be  making 
through  this  book  their  first  acquaintance  with 
Mr.  Sill,  a  brief  account  of  his  short  life  is 
reproduced  here  from  the  Note  to  the  first  col 
lection  of  his  Poems.  He  was  born  in  Wind 
sor,  Connecticut,  in  1841,  and  graduated  at 


x  Introduction 

Yale  College  with  the  class  of  1861.  He  went 
to  California  not  long  after  graduation,  and  at 
first  engaged  in  business,  but  in  1867  returned 
East  with  the  expectation  of  entering  the  min 
istry,  and  studied  for  a  few  months  at  the 
Divinity  School  of  Harvard  University.  He 
gave  up  the  purpose,  however,  married,  and 
occupied  himself  with  literary  work,  translat 
ing  Rau's  Mozart,  holding  an  editorial  position 
on  the  New  York  Evening  Mail,  and  bringing 
out  a  volume  of  poems.  His  peculiar  power 
in  stimulating  the  minds  of  others  drew  him 
into  the  work  of  teaching,  and  he  became 
principal  of  an  academy  in  Ohio.  His  Cali 
fornia  life,  however,  had  given  him  a  strong 
attachment  to  the  Pacific  coast  and  a  sense 
that  his  health  would  be  better  there,  and 
accordingly,  on  receiving  an  invitation  to  a 
position  in  the  Oakland  High  School,  he 
removed  to  California  in  1871,  remaining  there 
till  1883.  In  1874  he  accepted  the  chair  of 
English  Literature  in  the  University  of  Cali 
fornia,  and  identified  himself  closely  with  the 
literary  life  which  found  its  expression  in  maga 
zines  and  social  organization.  Upon  his  return 
to  the  East  with  the  intention  of  devoting  him 
self  more  exclusively  to  literary  work,  he  be 
gan  that  abundant  production  which  has  been 
hinted  at,  and  which,  anonymous  for  the  most 


Introduction  xi 

part,  was  rapidly  giving  him  facility  of  execu 
tion  and  drawing  attention  to  the  versatility, 
the  insight,  the  sympathetic  power,  the  inspir 
ing  force  which  had  always  marked  his  teach 
ing,  and  bade  fair  to  bring  a  large  and  appre 
ciative  audience  about  him.  He  lived  remote 
from  the  press  of  active  life,  always  close  to 
the  centre  of  current  intellectual  and  spiritual 
movements,  in  the  village  of  Cuyahoga  Falls, 
Ohio,  where  he  died  after  a  brief  illness,  Feb 
ruary  27,  1887. 

Some  of  the  details  of  this  uneventful  life, 
and  some  of  the  characteristics  of  a  very 
lovable  nature,  may  be  gathered  from  the  fol 
lowing  extracts  from  his  familiar  correspond 
ence.  His  letters  were  jotted  down  more 
hastily  than  his  most  casual  writing  for  an 
open  public,  and  suffer  thus  less  from  a  frag 
mentary  use  than  would  be  the  case  had  he 
relied  much  upon  this  form  of  writing ;  but  he 
was  always,  as  it  were,  writing  to  his  friends 
when  he  wrote  his  papers  and  brief  articles  ; 
these  bits  from  his  letters  therefore  should  be 
taken  as  little  more  than  notes.  -The  effort 
has  been  made  in  the  selection  to  trace  some 
thing  of  Mr.  Sill's  thought  about  himself  in  the 
successive  changes  of  his  outward  life ;  most 
attention  thus  has  been  given  to  the  formative 
period,  though  indeed  that  term  might  well  be 


xii  Introduction 

applied  to  his  entire  life,  so  open  did  he  keep 
all  the  inlets  into  his  mind  and  heart.  Some 
of  the  letters  or  parts  of  letters  are  taken  from 
the  Memorial  privately  printed  in  1887. 

TO  H.  H. 
SACRAMENTO,  April  2,  1862. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  Arrived  —  so  soon  —  safe 
and  well  —  ought  n't  I  to  be  thankful,  after 
such  a  voyage  ?  We  landed  in  San  Francisco 
last  week  Tuesday,  March  25,  —  as  to  Shears, 
glad  to  get  ashore  —  as  to  me,  rather  sorry,  for 
I  enjoyed  the  voyage  exceedingly,  and  dreaded 
to  meet  my  dubious  prospects  on  shore.  Not 
that  Shears  didn't  enjoy  it  —  for  he  did,  hugely, 
—  but  he's  got  a  home,  you  know,  in  San 
Francisco,  and  has  something  to  do  —  viz., 
the  law.  By  the  way,  he  's  got  a  very  pleasant 
home  there,  too  —  father,  brother,  brother's 
wife  and  brother's  baby  —  the  latter  being  the 
prettiest  extant. 

The  life  at  sea  just  suited  me  —  giving  me  a 
sound  digestion,  a  deliciously  pure  atmosphere 
to  see  the  stars  through,  and  that  utter  seclu 
sion  which  has  always  been  my  longing  — 
secure,  too,  from  any  haunting  restlessness  to 
be  doing  something  —  that  relentless  feeling, 
you  know,  which  is  always  jogging  your  elbow 
whenever  you  get  fixed  comfortably  in  a  self- 


Introduction  xiii 

ish,  idle  seclusion,  whispering,  "Get  up  and 
go  to  work  !  fellow-men  —  fellow-men  —  go 
to  work  —  go  to  work  !  "  But  out  there  I 
couldn't  do  anything,  nor  have  anything  to  do 
with  anybody,  if  I  tried  —  so  I  took  my  ease 
with  a  good  conscience.  Well,  we  had  a  good 
time,  and  it  did  us  good  —  is  n't  that  a  pretty 
satisfactory  report  ? 

We  did  n't  write  the  book,  for  we  concluded 
(not  without  serious  talks  on  it)  that  we  had  n't 
enough  worthy  material  for  a  book.  You  say 
Pshaw !  at  that  —  I  can  hear  you  with  great 
distinctness,  way  off  here  —  but  though  there 
were  specious  and  tempting  considerations  in 
favor  of  it,  the  sober  and  reasonable  course 
was  not  to  —  and  so  we  did  n't.  I  kept  a 
pretty  full  journal,  which  you  may  read  if 
you  '11  come  out  here.  I  wish  I  had  you  here 

—  I  'd  tell  you  everything  I  saw  and  did  and 
thought  on  the  way  —  but  as  that  can't  be,  I  '11 
scribble  this  sheet  full  and  wait  till  I  see  you 

—  which  won't  be  many  years  —  for  you  will 
be  in  New  England  I  hope,  and   I  shall   be 
back  in  two  years  or  less.     Well,  we  got  off,  as 
you  know,  December  9,  into  a  fogbank  —  out 
of  which  came  forth  a  roaring  gale,  which  did 
make  us  seasick  —  oh,  it  did —  I  hope  Shears 
will  write  you  about  it  —  I'm  not  equal  to  the 
occasion.     After  the  first  fortnight,  though,  we 


xiv  Introduction 

mounted  our  sea  legs  and  never  got  off  them. 
Wonder  if  you  'd  look  out  our  course  on  a  map 
if  I  gave  it  to  you  ?  Here  't  is,  anyway. 

Frank  K.  writes  that  you  are  class  poet.  I 
am  very  glad  —  it 's  a  very  pleasant  thing  to 
have,  and  I  am  glad  they  had  the  sense  to  do 
it.  Don't  "  put  off  "  now  —  mind  you  don't. 
I  hope  that  you  will  do  a  better  thing  than  I 
did  —  something  that  will  have  a  good  influ 
ence.  Don't  say  anything  you  are  not  sure  is 
true  —  for  there  is  enough  certain  truth.  God 
bless  you  in  that  as  in  everything. 

TO  THE  SAME 

July  24. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  I  wrote  you  a  long  letter 
when  I  first  arrived  here,  which  perhaps  never 
has  reached  you  —  for  I  sent  a  good  many 
about  that  time  by  the  overland  route,  some  of 
which  I  know  were  not  received.  Your  letter 
to  Sex  and  me  came  in  due  season  —  but  I 
have  been  hoping  that  mine  would  at  last  get 
to  you,  and  that  I  should  hear  from  you  again 
by  this  time.  I  don't  think  it 's  best  to  wait 
any  longer,  though.  I  have  no  idea  where  you 
will  be  by  the  time  this  has  reached  the  States, 
but  I  shall  inclose  it  to  Frank,  trusting  to  his 
knowing  of  your  whereabouts.  I  want  to  hear 


Introduction  xv 

all  about  the  winding  up  of  your  College  life 

—  and   about  the  Poem  —  and  the   Poem  — 
Have  n't  you  sent  me  one  ?      If  you  have  n't 
sent  several  to  me,  you  deserve  stripes  —  for 
"  private  distribution  "  you  know,  as  well  as 
the  one  for  public  reading.     And  after  all  our 
ponderings,  what  are  you  going   to  do  ?    and 
where  ?     Study  law  at  Harvard,  I  rather  hope. 

As  for  me,  I  have  come  to  it  finally,  like  all 
the  rest  of  'em  —  I  am  to  study  law.  And 
what  a  lawyer  I  shall  make !  I  suppose  I  am 
one  of  the  first,  though,  who  ever  determined 
on  that  profession  for  the  benefit  it  would  be 
to  himself  spiritually.  Yet  that 's  my  crotchet. 
We  are  (some  people  don't  seem  to  be — but 
you  and  I  and  a  few  of  us  certainly  are) 
planted  down  in  the  midst  of  a  great  snarl  and 
tangle  of  interrogation  points.  We  want  to  find 

—  we  must  find  —  some  fixed  truth.    Either  we 
are  wrong  and  the  vast  majority  of   thinkers 
right,  or  they  are  wrong,  and  we  right  —  and 
that,  too,  not  on  one  point,  but  a  thousand  — 
points  of  the  vastest    scope    and   importance. 
As  Kingsley  puts   it,  we  are  set  down  before 
that  greatest  world-problem  —  "  Given  Self,  to 
find  God."     So,  considering  that  for  such  tasks 
the   mind  needs   every  preparation,   skill  and 
practice  in  drawing  close  distinctions,  subtile- 
ness   in  detecting  sophistry,  strength  and  pa 


xvi  Introduction 

tience  to  work  at  a  train  of  thought  continu 
ously  long  enough  to  follow  its  consequences 
dear  out,  and  some  systematized  memory  (if 
for  nothing  but  holding  and  duly  furnishing 
your  own  thoughts  when  needed)  —  I  say, 
seeing  no  better  —  or  rather,  no  other  —  way 
to  gain  these  but  by  entering  the  law,  thither 
wards  I  have  set  my  face.  I  have  sifted  it  all 
down  to  this  conclusion  —  that  in  teaching,  or 
in  Literature,  or  even  in  following  up  some 
chosen  science  (much  less  some  chosen  art, 
as  Poetry),  the  mind  would  not  get  fitted  for 
that  serious  work  which  is  before  it.  In  them, 
it  might  become  cultivated,  stored  with  know 
ledge,  in  some  sense  developed  —  but  not  dis 
ciplined.  Now  just  take  that  one  question 
alone — Is  Christianity  true?  What  impu 
dence  it  would  be  in  us  to  consider  that  settled 
in  the  negative,  until  we  felt  that  our  intellects 
were  as  strong,  as  capable  of  close,  protracted 
reasoning,  as  little  liable  to  be  misled  by 
sophistry,  as  all  those  greatest  men  who  have 
time  after  time  settled  it  for  themselves  in  the 
affirmative.  I  for  my  part  can  see  no  way  in 
which  I  can  at  the  same  time  earn  a  living, 
and  get  the  active  Powers  of  my  mind  thor 
oughly  disciplined,  except  by  studying  law.  .  . . 


Introduction  xvii 

TO  THE  SAME 

March  26,  1864.  Saturday  night. 
DEAR  HEN,  —  It  is  only  one  of  many  disad 
vantages  of  letters,  as  a  voice  between  friends, 
that  each  letter  can  be  merely  the  representa 
tion  of  one  particular  mood.  And  if  it  so  hap 
pens,  by  an  accidental  trick  of  circumstances, 
that  all  one's  letters  are  written  at  the  same 
hour  of  the  day,  and  therefore  under  the  influ 
ence  of  one  and  the  same  mood,  he  will  get 
only  one  little  aspect  of  himself  conveyed  to 
his  friend.  Such  seems  to  be  my  fate.  I 
write  always  in  the  evenings  (unless  occasion 
ally  I  happen  to  wedge  in  an  hour  Sunday 
somewhere)  after  being  wearied  by  the  doings 
(and  getting-done-to's)  of  the  day.  Conse 
quently  I  suppose  I  always  seem  to  you  to  be 
tired  and  depressed.  Which  result  is  unde 
sirable.  Because  it  is  always  —  must  be  —  dis 
agreeable  to  an  honest  person,  the  idea  of  ob 
taining  commiseration  under  false  pretenses, 
and  partly  because,  next  to  fully  knowing  — 
understanding  —  my  Beloveds,  I  like  to  have 
them  understand  the  whole  of  me  —  and  to 
be  always  thought  of  as  a  broken  reed  one 
does  n't  like.  Now  this  is  not  pride  —  which  I 
am  trying  to  express  —  not  the  kind  of  feeling 
which  made  us  when  little  chaps  hold  in  under 


xviii  Introduction 

indignities,  and  swear  we  did  n't  care  a  bit, 
and  go  behind  the  door  to  snivel  unseen  —  but 
it  is  only  just  as  I  said  —  a  fervid  desire  to  be 
known  by,  as  I  would  know,  the  few  nearest. 

I  wonder  if  it  ever  is  actually  to  happen 
that  our  broken  threads  of  relationship  shall 
be  joined  again.  It  is  just  like  the  "faults" 
they  come  to  in  mining  —  the  strata  run 
along,  you  know,  side  by  side  till  —  plump  ! 
they  come  up  against  a  wall  of  partition  —  and 
the  question  is  then,  do  they  go  on  again  to 
gether  on  the  other  side,  beyond  ?  and  if  so, 
how  far  must  we  go  before  coming  to  the  junc 
tion  again  ? 

Next  month  I  am  going  to  "  move  "  —  shall 
quit  the  Post  Office,  and  go  up  to  a  little  town 
some  twenty  miles  north  of  Sac.  —  Folsom  — 
(Foo/som  —  in  the  barbarous  dialect  of  the 
natives  here  —  I  don't  know  but  the  name  is 
a  fearful  augury  of  my  wisdom  in  going  there.) 
Goes  I  there  into  a  Bank  —  changing  my  de 
lightful  employment  of  peddling  postage-stamps 
(stomps  —  they  call  'em  here)  for  that  of  buying 
gold  dust  from  Mexicans,  Digger  Indians,  and 
Chinamen,  who  are  all  great  at  the  "  surface- 
mining"  in  that  vicinity. 

California  (so  far  as  that  means  the  natural 
and  not  the  human  aspect  thereof)  is  inexpres 
sibly  beautiful  just  now.  The  trees  are  all 


Introduction  xix 

just  "  out,"  in  their  spring  vesture  —  the  fields 
full  of  flowers  —  nobody  has  any  right  to  talk 
about  fields  carpeted  with  flowers,  till  he  has 
seen  them  here,  or,  I  suppose,  in  the  still 
more  Tropical  climates.  Great  gorgeous  fel 
lows,  you  know  —  like  all  the  conservatories 
you  ever  saw  broken  loose  and  romping  over 
the  wild  plains  here,  exulting  and  irrepressible. 
And  not  only  these  superb  sorts,  but  come  to 
stoop  down  and  look  closer  you  find  multitudes 
of  the  least  wee  blossoms  —  little  stars,  scarcely 
bigger  than  a  pin's  head,  blue,  and  pure  white, 
perfect  as  gems.  Only  so  for  a  couple  of 
months  or  three  months  —  then  the  parching, 
rainless  summer  bakes  the  ground,  and  browns 
the  dry  grass  to  a  monotonous  tint  that  makes 
one  hot  and  thirsty  even  to  look  at  it. 

And  as  with  the  vegetation,  so  with  the  chil 
dren  born  here.  Little  human  blossoms,  such 
as  one  rarely  sees  in  the  cold  Atlantic  States. 
Mites  of  girls,  with  complexions  like  porcelain 
which  you  look  at  the  light  through  —  and  soft, 
beautiful  eyes.  And  little  boys,  fair  and  deli 
cate  as  girls  —  bright  and  gentle,  but  so  fragile 
looking  that  it  seems  as  though  to  speak  sud 
denly  to  them  would  shock  them  out  of  exist 
ence.  They  come  around  to  my  Post  Office 
windows,  toddling  bits  of  creatures,  asking  for 
letters  as  sedate  and  grave  as  old  men  —  and 


xx  Introduction 

trotting  off  with  them  in  their  little  hands,  the 
letter  almost  as  big  as  the  sprite  that  carries  it. 
Whereat  the  clerk,  Sill,  pokes  his  head  con 
templatively  through  the  window,  and  marvels 
at  the  climate  which  produces  such  things. 

So  !  and  now  you  owe  me  two  letters. 

Good-night  to  both  of  you. 

TO   THE   SAME 

February  28,  1865. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  I  've  been  reading  Theology 
lately.  You  spoke  of  the  legion  of  things 
which  claim  our  attention — verily,  verily.  But 
moral  philosophy  stands  first  —  then  meta 
physics —  then  down,  to  medicine,  literature, 
sociology,  KoAology,  history,  etc.  I  keep  a 
little  fountain  babbling  and  plashing  in  my 
brain,  by  reading,  nearly  every  day,  a  word  of 
Tennyson  or  Browning  (Mrs.  I  mean)  or 
Ruskin  or  Bible  or  somebody.  I  would  like 
to  take  your  arm  and  start  on  a  trip  through 
moral  philosophy,  by  evenings.  How  I  want 
to  see  you  and  your  pearl. 

I  '11  leave  this  as  just  a  note  —  for  reminder. 
I  want  to  learn  the  organ  when  I  come  East. 
What  will  it  cost  me,  besides  time  ?  It  is  in 
me  if  I  do  not  get  too  old  before  it  can  come 
out. 

Love  to  vos  —          Yours. 


Introduction  xxi 

TO   THE   SAME 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  August  6,  1865. 

People  think  that  a  thinking  man's  specula 
tions  about  religion,  etc.,  interfere  with  his 
daily  life  very  little  —  but  how  certain  conclu 
sions  do  take  the  shine  out  of  one's  existence ! 
These  Spencer  chaps  may  be  very  excellent  — 
but  to  me  there  is  an  apple  of  Sodom  smack 
about  it  all  —  Little  pigmies  —  what  kind  of 
babbling  is  this  for  worm-meat  to  emit  ?  "  For 
man  "  (not  even  with  a  capital  m)  "  is  not  as 
God."  And  I  more  than  suspect  that  the  said 
worms  lick  their  chaps  over  the  brain,  as  over 
the  common  tidbits  of  the  grave. 

I  send  a  pamphlet  containing  a  pome  by  me. 
It  is  only  the  drippings  of  some  very  few  and 
lean  weeks,  when  I  had  too  much  dragging 
business  work  to  do  for  any  poetry  to  come 
out  of  it.  They  thought  it  extraordinary  out 
here  though. 

TO   THE   SAME 

OAKLAND,  June  17,  1866. 
Sunday,  P.  M. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  Steamer  sails  to-morrow, 
and  I  want  to  send  one  of  my  usual  unsatis 
factory  and  hasty  scrawls  as  a  mere  sprawl  to 
show  that  I  'm  still  alive,  and  that  however 


xxii  Introduction 

little  else  there  may  be  in  my  mind  at  any 
given  time,  you  at  least  are  in  it.  I  have  been 
loafing  all  the  afternoon  so  far,  and  feel  ex 
ceedingly  idle  and  good  for  nothing.  Have 
been  lying  on  my  back  and  talking  with  Shears 
on  all  the  subjects  in  the  Universe  one  after 
the  other,  as  the  tide  of  two  lazy  minds  drifted 
us  —  not  enough  headway  on  to  steer  by,  and 
so  floated  through  politics,  religion,  education, 
social  progress,  etc.  Wish  you  could  have  been 
here  to  take  the  stroke  oar.  I  've  been  writ 
ing  a  lot  of  poetry.  Shall  want  to  consult  with 
you  about  it  when  I  see  you.  Have  got  one 
poem  of  about  a  thousand  lines  and  a  lot  of 
short  ones,  about  as  much  more,  enough  to 
make  a  gay  little  vol.  if  illustrated  a  little,  and 
got  out  nicely  —  but  as  to  the  inside,  don't 
know  —  the  more  I  write  the  less  satisfied  I 
am  with  any  of  my  doings  in  poetry  —  verily, 
art  is  different  from  handicraft  as  Grimm  says 
—  only  the  perfect  works  ought  to  be  given  to 
the  public  —  a  bad  boot  or  a  tolerable  article 
of  cloth  may  be  worth  offering  for  sale,  but 
when  it  comes  to  offering  tolerable  art — after 
Tennyson  and  the  Brownings  —  't  won't  do  — 
a  poor  devil  ought  to  be  hung  for  doing  it, 
unless  he  be  very  poor,  when  his  punishment 
might  be  commuted  into  imprisonment  for  life 
with  only  Tupper  and  the  Country  Parson  for 


Introduction  xxiii 

food   and  drink  —  in  the  way  of   stale  toast 
or  so. 

I  'm  reading  Marx's  "  Musical  Composition." 
Ever  read  it  ?  and  do  you  cultivate  music  any 
now  ?  You  ask  (by  the  way,  you  have  persist 
ently,  and  without  the  least  provocation  on  my 
part,  written  uniformly  jolly  and  good  letters  — 
may  your  reward  be  great  some  day  —  though 
I  don't  see  how  it 's  to  come)  what  I  —  we  — 
want  to  do  when  we  get  on  there,  with  the 
view  of  cultivating  the  ground  a  little  for  us 
two  old  seeds  to  plant  ourselves  in. 

I  can't  tell  at  all  till  I  have  got  there,  found 
how  my  health  is  going  to  be,  how  much  chance 
of  literary  success  there  is  for  me,  how  much 
of  musical,  and  more  than  all,  till  I  have  been 
out  to  Ohio  and  seen  my  friends  there. 

I  can't  ever  preach  —  that  has  slowly  settled 
itself  in  spite  of  my  reluctant  hanging  on  to 
the  doubt.  I  can't  solve  the  problems  —  only 
the  great  schoolmaster  Death  will  ever  take 
me  through  these  higher  mathematics  of  the 
religious  principia  —  this  side  of  his  schooling, 
in  these  primary  grades,  I  never  can  preach. 
I  shall  teach  school,  I  suppose. 

How  gay  it  will  be  to  see  you  !  How  we 
will  enjoy  renewing  all  the  past  except  the 
nonsense  and  absurdities  of  it. 


xxiv  Introduction 

I  will  leave  the  rest  of  this  blank  for  the 
squire  to  add  on  to-night. 
Vale,  old  soul.  Yrs. 

TO   THE    SAME 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  12,  1867. 
Friday  morning. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  There  seems  to  be  a  gap, 
just  in  here,  after  reading  the  quantum  of  Plu 
tarch,  when  there  is  nothing  that  must  be  did 
—  so  I  '11  employ  it  to  keep  up  our  acquaint 
ance. 

I  got  a  note  from  Taintor  yesterday  with 
his  card  —  229  Broadway  —  calling  for  songs. 
Sent  him  one  batch  thro'  you,  and  a  batch  and 
botch  of  one  this  morning.  I  hope  the  Tain- 
torian  brain  is  not  shrewd  enough  to  detect 
the  fact  that  they  are  trash  of  the  first  water 
(or  as  Sex  says  on  a  late  occasion,  of  the  first 
milk-and-water).  By  the  way,  vide  "  Galaxy " 
of  April  15 — Translation  by  Sex  of  Lessing's 
"  Ring  "  —  good  thing.  Good  joke  on  me  that  I 
send  to  the  "  Galaxy  "  and  get  kicked,  and  my 
chum  gets  accepted.  If  I  c'd  lick  him  I  w'd,  but 
he  boxes  me  out  of  time  hitherto.  I  can  beat 
him  at  Base  Ball  tho',  and  mildly  whopped 
him  yesterday  at  quoits.  He  officiated  at 
Prayers  yesterday  evening  for  the  first  time 
and  did  it  first-rate.  My  turn  comes  to-night. 


Introduction  xxv 

I  am  enjoying  my  opportunities  here  hugely. 
They  give  me  books  and  let  me  alone  —  what 
more  could  a  man  ask  ?  Besides  some  good 
lectures  outside — Agassiz,  etc.  I  went  to  a 
sacred  concert  last  Sunday  night  in  Music 
Hall.  It  was  very  fine.  I  don't  know  that  I 
ever  enjoyed  music  so  much.  Didn't  hear  the 
great  organ  though,  so  I  am  going  over  to  hear 
that  in  an  orchestral  concert  this  P.  M.  Sun 
day  night  there  was  glorious  orchestra  music, 
and  Arbuckle  had  a  cornet  arrangement  of 
Adelaide  with  orchestra  which  nearly  drew  my 
heart  out  of  my  body.  I  have  always  raved 
about  that  song,  but  never  heard  it  perfectly 
given  before.  What  a  splendor  brass  is  when 
exquisitely  played.  How  it  winds  and  winds 
into  one's  very  Ego,  and  tangles  itself  up  with 
the  emotions  and  passions  and  soars  up  with 
them.  The  wood  sings  all  around  one  —  the 
strings  wail  and  implore  to  us  —  but  the  brass 
enters  in  and  carries  one  off  bodily.  Do  you 
concur  ?  I  want  to  hear  that  great  organ  —  it 
was  music  only  to  look  at  it  —  a  great,  dark, 
shadowy  cathedral  looming  up  at  the  end  of 
the  immense  Hall  —  Apollo  Belvidere  up  in  a 
niche  opposite,  looking  scornful,  as  if  to  say 
that  all  that  solemn,  shadowy,  bitter-sweet  mu 
sic —  the  heart-broken  triumph  —  the  fire  of 
tears  —  is  poor  by  the  side  of  his  memories  of 


xxviii  Introduction 

spair  of  individual  planning  and  trying,  I  let 
the  future  alone  more  than  most  seem  to :  per 
haps  too  much.  Except  as  it  affects  the  con 
venience  of  others  who  may  hinge  more  or 
less  on  our  edges,  I  don't  see  much  advantage 
in  taking  thought  far  ahead,  especially  as  to 
details. 

Wherever  I  am,  and  however,  I  mean  to  try 
to  do  and  be  certain  things  (especially  the  do 
ing  ;  for  I  find,  looking  at  my  life  a  week  at  a 
time,  that  has  been  the  core,  nowadays)  but 
the  where  and  how  I  leave  till  the  last  minute. 
So  I  know  I  am  to  be  here  till  July  next,  and 
beyond  that  I  don't  look,  except  that  your 
words  about  Oakland  bring  to  mind  vividly 
that  't  would  be  very  pleasant  to  be  there. 

I  'm  not  fitting  very  fast  to  be  good  in  any 
one  department  of  teaching.  I  am  scattered 
all  over  my  school  here,  and  with  128  scholars, 
and  all  manner  of  branches,  Lat,  Gk.,  German, 
Chemistry,  Hist.,  Geog.,  Arith.,  Astron.  and 
the  beginnings  of  everything  else  a'most,  you 
see  how  good  a  chance  I  have  to  be  anything 
in  particular.  I  am  a  miserable  smatterer,  and 
likely  to  be  ;  getting  my  lessons  for  each  day 
ahead,  and  not  making  any  very  profitable  ac 
quisitions,  except  perhaps  about  boy  and  girl 
nature  in  general. 

I    would    like  to    have    a    window    opened 


Introduction  xxix 

through  which  I  might  get  a  draft  of  fresh 
communion  with  the  lives  of  you  folks  there. 
Can't  you  appoint  some  one  of  the  crowd  as 
sec'y  to  write  me  what  you  do  and  what  it  is 
all  about,  from  week  to  week  ?  And  when  I 
say  "  crowd  "  I  remember  that  after  all  there 
are  but  few  of  you. 

Strange  that  on  such  a  great  planet,  alive 
with  us,  our  thoughts  and  loves  and  sympathies 
should  just  cluster  a  half-dozen  here  and  a 
half-dozen  there,  and  count  all  the  "world," 
so  far  as  we  care,  on  our  fingers. 

I  suppose  we  are  reading  the  same  tele 
graphic  news,  every  clay,  and  hearing  the  same 
topics  talked,  and  the  wives  are  playing  the 
identical  pieces  on  the  pretty-much-identical 
pianos  (only  ours  is  out  of  tune  at  present)  and 
so  on.  Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

TO  H.  H. 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  February  13,  1880. 
DEAR  HENRY,  —  Yours  justrec'd.  Thank 
you  for  the  information  for  my  inquiring  stu 
dent,  about  the  book-man.  I  knew  about  the 
Social  Science  Associations,  but  my  point  was 
that  they  don't  go  to  the  bottom  difficulty  :  viz., 
what  end  are  we  after  ?  And  secondly,  is  it  the 
end  we  had  better  be  after.  My  notion  is  that 


xxx  Introduction 

Spencer  is  the  only  man  that  has  begun  to 
answer  that  question  —  namely  in  the  Data  — 
and  in  previous  hints  which  he  that  did  n't 
run  too  fast  might  read,  and  that  the  Associa 
tions  have  been  puttering  about  Contagious 
Diseases,  Drainage,  Prison  Reform,  and  other 
such  excellent  matters  to  work  at,  but  the  per 
fection  of  which  would  leave  us  very  little 
better  off  than  at  present.  The  best  thing  you 
can  do  with  such  people  as  we  have  now  is  to 
let  the  contagious  diseases  thin  'em  out  a  little, 
perhaps. 

As  to  your  thought  that  I  have  scattered, 
and  ought  to  make  myself  "  favorably  known." 
My  dear  fellow,  I  like  your  caring  for  me 
enough  to  say  this  and  wish  this,  but  —  if  you 
knew  about  my  life  of  late  years  and  my  ideas 
of  life,  you  would  see.  I  am  not  and  have  n't 
been  trying  to  make  mj-self  favorably  known. 
The  devil  take  any  one  that  is  trying  for  it.  I 
have  been  working  to  educate,  in  some  high 
sense,  successive  classes  of  young  people  ;  and 
meanwhile  to  know  more  about  education,  and 
especially  literature  as  a  means  of  it.  and  about 
education  in  its  relation  to  society  and  life.  I 
am  contented  to  die  unknown,  if  I  can  arrive 
at  the  truth  about  certain  great  matters,  and 
can  put  others  in  the  way  thereof.  If  there  is 
anything  which  utterly  disgusts  me  and  makes 


Introduction  xxxi 

me  howl  aloud  and  swear,  it  is  these  infernal 
fools  who  are  fighting  to  get  their  names 
abroad,  and  care  for  no  other  work.  That  a 
man  like  Spencer  should  be  well  known  is  a 
matter  of  course  and  all  right ;  but  he  has  not 
cared  for  that.  Let  a  man  work  his  work  in 
peace,  and  the  devil  take  his  name  —  the  less 
likely  to  get  anything  more  of  him  than  that. 
But  I  am  ever  yours. 

TO  M.  w.  s. 

AMBLESIDE,  WESTMORELAND, 
September,  1881. 

This  violet  is  a  descendant  of  the  one 
Wordsworth  is  always  writing  about.  At  least 
I  picked  it  to-day  on  the  side  of  the  path  where 
he  must  have  walked  many  times,  between  his 
house  and  Stock  Ghyll  Force.  It  is  a  beauti 
ful  region,  this  of  the  English  Lakes  ;  but  one 
does  n't  see,  after  all,  why  poetry  should  not 
be  thought  and  felt  and  written  as  well  at 
Niles  or  Berkeley  as  in  Westmoreland.  The 
Alps  and  this  region  you  must  see  some  day. 

In  haste,  with  regards  to  you  all,  from  both 
of  us.  Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 


xxxii  Introduction 

TO  THE  SAME 

CUYA.  FALLS, 
Tuesday  morning,  May  15,  1883. 

Your  so  large  a  letter  with  your  own  hand 
was  rec'd  last  evening,  in  the  midst  of  some 
petty  personal  bothers  and  obscure  mental 
generalizations  not  favorable  to  the  scheme  of 
things :  so  that  it  served  admirably  the  pur 
pose  of  foreign  travel  and  new  scenes  to  the 
invalid,  and  I  went  to  bed  much  refreshed  and 
lightened  up. 

All  our  ordinary  bothers  only  need  an  out 
side  point  of  view  to  let  the  sawdust  out  of 
them  (rapid  change  of  figure  :  Shaksperian), 
and  to  get  into  another  person's  world  gives  us 
a  big  parallax  for  proper  estimates  of  our  own 
orbits.  What  fairy  mythology  is  there,  of  a 
man  who  shifts  from  one  life  to  another  and 
back  all  the  time :  so  when  I  read  your  letters 
I  am  a  Californian  out  and  out  —  or  in  and  in. 

By  the  way,  I  sent  the  volume  —  (it  needs 
a  name  :  what  shall  I  call  it  ?  Little  Piecrusty) 
to  Matthew  Arnold,  and  he  was  so  gracious  as 
to  send  me  a  letter  expressing  his  pleasure  at 
some  things  in  it  —  briefly  —  and,  by  the  way, 
his  much  agreement  with  my  H.  Spencer  arti 
cle  in  the  "Atlantic."  They  tell  me,  by  the  way 
to  the  third  power,  that  Youmans  has  made  a 


Introduction  xxxiii 

furious  assault  on  it  —  but  I  shan't  look  at  it 
till  I  want  to  write  again  on  the  subject.  .  .  . 

TO  A  PUPIL 

June  6,  1 88 1. 

DEAR  LUCY,  —  Your  question  of  26th  May 
was  too  good  a  one  to  leave  so  long  unan 
swered.  It  was  not  left  as  being  too  hard  to 
answer,  but  I  have  been  very  busy,  and  really 
could  not  find  time  to  settle  myself  to  say  any 
thing  on  so  important  a  question  till  to-night, 
and  now  it  must  be  a  brief  note.  The  real 
value  of  "  being  well  read  "  seems  to  me  to  be 
in  the  wider  and  truer  life  it  gives  us.  By 
"  wider "  I  mean  that  our  thoughts  and  feel 
ings  and  purposes  are  more  complex  and  more 
consonant  with  the  complexity  and  manifold- 
ness  of  the  universe  we  live  in  :  the  microcosm 
gets  a  little  —  even  if  a  very  little  —  nearer  in 
quality  and  quantity  to  the  macrocosm.  The 
crystal  leads  such  a  narrow  life  —  just  along 
one  little  line  —  a  single  law  of  facet  and 
angle  :  the  plant  a  little  wider  :  the  fish  a  little 
wider :  and  the  different  sorts  of  people  widen 
ing  and  widening  out  in  their  inner  activities 
—  and  much  according  to  their  reading  (since 
living  human  contact  is  not  possible,  except 
with  the  few  relatives  and  neighbors). 

And  by  truer  life,  I  mean  truer  to  nature: 


xxxiv  Introduction 

more  as  we  were  meant  to  be :  the  inner  rela 
tions,  between  ideas,  corresponding  closer  to 
the  outer  relations  —  or  "  real  "  relations  — 
between  things.  These  real  thing-relations  are 
in  fact  very  complex  and  vastly  inclusive :  so 
must  the  thoughts  and  feelings  be,  if  "  true," 
or  truly  correspondent  or  mirror-like  to  them. 

I  don't  see  that  culture  (unless  you  spell  it 
wrong)  needs  —  or  tends  at  all  —  to  cut  one 
off  from  human  warmth.  Are  not  some  of  the 
"  best  read  "  people  you  know  or  hear  of,  some 
of  the  broadest-hearted  also  ?  The  very  es 
sence  of  culture  is  shaking  off  the  nightmare 
of  self-consciousness  and  self-absorption  and 
attaining  a  sort  of  Christian  Nirvana  —  lost  in 
the  great  whole  of  humanity  :  thinking  of 
others,  caring  for  others,  admiring  and  loving 
others. 

I  should  like  to  have  you  write  me  more 
fully  about  it  some  time. 

Yours  sincerely. 

TO  E.  B. 

February  2,  1883. 

DEAR  Miss  B.  —  It 's  a  bad  time  to  take  up 
trees  in  the  winter  ;  ground  is  frozen  ;  roots 
can't  go  down.  This  is  a  parable.  If  it  were 
summer  here,  no  doubt  I  should  be  taking 
long  walks  and  going  fishing,  and  mooning 


Introduction  xxxv 

about,  nights  —  and  keeping  my  old  environ 
ment  out  of  my  head  as  thoroughly  as  pos 
sible.  But  it 's  winter  —  the  dead  vast  and 
middle  of  it  (as  Howell  quotes  of  the  summer) 

—  and  my  roots  are  all  in  the  air  as  yet,  and 
I  feel  extremely  queer.     We  are  supposed  to 
have  got  settled.     I  have  established  a  writ 
ing-table  with  the  birds  contiguous  (as  near  a 
window  as  I  dare  put  'em  for  fear  of  freezing 
their  noses  off  :  you  remember  how  the  cold  air 
pierces  in  between  the  sashes  of  a  window  like 
a  long  thin  knife  ?).     Mr.  Kellogg's  "  Berkeley 
bucket "  of  last  Xmas  stands  on  the  table  with 
some    rather   timid-looking   greenhouse   pinks 
and  geraniums  in  it.     They  manage  to  have 
some  green  leaves  and  posies  under  a  glass  — 
but  what  looking  gardens  !     They  were  spaded 
in  the  fall,  so  that  when  not  mercifully  veiled 
with  snow  they  look   all   lumpy  mud,  frozen. 
Gracious  !  what  a  looking  world. 

I  am  supposed  to  be  entered  on  a  mad 
career  of  literary  work.  Have  so  far  only 
written  some  very  mild  verses  —  suitable  for 
nursery  use  in  some  amiable  but  weak-minded 
family.  But  then  I  've  been  skating  twice ! 
Think  of  that  —  real  ice,  too.  You  can  make 
Mr.  Metcalf  feel  bad  about  that,  if  you  tell  him 

—  and  make  him.  think  he  'd  like  to  be  here ; 
but  he  would  n't. 


xxxvi  Introduction 

It's  a  curious  illusion  of  yours  out  there, 
that  you  can  go  out  and  pick  flowers  and  hear 
leaves  rustle  and  see  grass  grow  and  feel 
thorough-going  sunshine.  You  can't,  you 
know,  'cause  it 's  winter  everywhere  :  snow 
and  ice,  or  frozen  slush  and  mud  —  it  must  be. 
/  used  to  have  that  same  hallucination  when  I 
was  out  there.  Queer.  Effect  of  the  climate, 
I  s'pose. 

Did  you  like  the  sea  ?  Then  you  would  like 
Russell's  "  Lady  Maud  "  (and  his  other  books). 
Wonderful  descriptions  of  the  sea  and  life  in 
ships  and  storms. 

You  are  going  to  write,  you  know. 

With  love  to  you  all,  yours  faithfully. 

E.  R.  SILL. 

TO   

[CuYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,] 
March  29,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  ED,  —  You  are  getting  on  toward 
the  close  of  the  Second  Act  —  the  college 
days  :  and  no  doubt  the  management  of  the 
Third  Act  begins  to  occupy  your  mind  a  good 
deal  —  and  perhaps  to  vex  it  a  little.  What 
to  do  with  one's  life  gets  to  be  a  large  question 
toward  the  close  of  Senior  Year.  In  my  own, 
I  was  saved  a  part  of  the  question,  for  my 
health  was  frail  and  threatened  me  a  little,  so 


Introduction  xxxvii 

that  the  immediate  duty  was  plain  enough  —  to 
cut  and  run  ;  which  I  did,  on  a  long  sea  voy 
age  ;  it  was  a  toss-up  which  way  it  should  be, 
among  all  the  oceans  and  continents,  but  it 
happened  to  be  to  California.  I  had  pretty 
much  determined  that  I  would  try  to  get  a 
better  aim  than  the  common  ones.  "  I  could 
not  hide  that  some  had  striven"  at  least,  what 
ever  they  had  "  attained."  Egoism,  pure  and 
simple,  had  somehow  always  struck  me  —  theo 
retically  —  as  mighty  paltry  for  a  grown-up 
man  ;  a  kind  of  permanent  ^//^-condition. 
And  I  cast  about  for  some  way  of  combining 
service  with  bread  and  butter.  The  ministry, 
or  teaching,  I  finally  settled  it  must  be  for  me. 
It  was  a  little  narrow,  and  conceited,  too,  to 
confine  the  choice  to  those  two.  I  can  see 
now  that  there  are  lots  of  ways  to  serve  — 
more  even  than  ways  to  get  bread  and  butter. 

A  sort  of  desperate  self-distrust  made  me 
choose  teaching,  of  the  two ;  but  before  I  got 
at  it,  this  same  morbid  notion  made  me  skulk 
from  that.  I  said,  in  a  kind  of  ridiculous 
nightmare  of  diffidence,  "  I  never  can  do  it  — 
never."  So  I  clerked  in  a  P.  O.  and  then  in  a 
bank.  At  last  I  went  to  a  Theological  Semi 
nary  (in  Cambridge,  because  there  you  did  not 
have  to  subscribe  to  a  creed,  definitely,  on  the 
start)  and  thought  I  would  try  the  preliminary 


xxxviii  Introduction 

steps,  anyway,  toward  the  ministry.  But  here 
I  finally  found  I  did  not  believe  in  the  things 
to  be  preached,  as  churches  went,  as  historical 
facts.  So  I  desperately  tried  teaching. 

I  set  my  teeth  together,  took  a  saddle-horse, 
rode  about  the  country  and  hunted  up  a  locality 
I  liked  the  looks  of,  with  a  clean  little  school- 
house  and  wholesome  looking  farm  people 
about  it,  and  taught  that  country  school.  I 
found  there  was  no  difficulty  in  doing  it,  after 
a  fashion  at  least ;  so  I  kept  on,  —  up  to  the 
date  of  my  leaving  you  in  California.  Toward 
the  last  I  kept  on,  not  so  much  because  I  still 
felt  that  this  was  the  only  altruistic-egoistic 
occupation  for  a  man  —  my  view  had  broad 
ened  from  that  —  but  rather  because  it  was 
the  thing  I  had  learned  to  do.  One  can't 
switch  off  after  a  certain  age.  Besides,  it  was 
one  thing,  certainly,  among  others,  worth  doing. 
There  are  few  men  that  find  after  forty  that 
there  are  more  things  than  one  that  they  know 
how  to  do  even  decently  well. 

One  thing  is  clear  :  a  year  or  two  of  teach 
ing  is  good  honest  work  for  any  one  —  an  ad 
vantage  to  others,  and  to  self  (for  others  in  the 
future),  as  well.  But  if  you  knew  you  should 
then  go  into  medicine,  I  think  I  should  not 
wait  but  go  into  it  at  once.  You  may  think 
medicine  ministers  only  to  the  body  —  but, 


Introduction  xxxix 

i.  the  body  is  a  necessary  condition  of  higher 
things,  and  2.  a  good  physician  finds  himself 
in  one  of  the  most  influential  positions  in  the 
community  for  good.  Nor  need  his  work  be 
confined  to  his  lancet  and  pill-boxes  (though 
there  's  a  nobleness  about  those,  when  you 
think  of  the  relations  of  mind  and  body),  but 
there  is  an  endless  range  of  studies,  and  per 
haps  of  writing,  possible  to  such  a  profession. 

One  thing  we  must  try  to  realize.  Our  in 
dividual  drop  of  force  is  only  one  in  a  great 
sea.  Perhaps,  even  if  we  saw  just  what  par 
ticular  piece  of  work  the  world  most  needed, 
we  should  not  be  the  man  for  it.  I  see  a  num 
ber  of  things  that  need  tremendously  to  be 
done  ;  but  /can't  do  them.  I  was  n't  properly 
endowed,  or  I  had  n't,  and  could  n't  have  got, 
the  training  for  it.  Meantime  I  do  what  my 
hand  finds  to  do  and  try  not  to  fret.  For  ex 
ample,  I  have  just  effected  the  organization 
of  a  Library  Association  in  this  little  manufac 
turing  town  —  which  very  likely  will  prove  to 
be  the  most  valuable  piece  of  work  I  have  ever 
done,  or  shall  ever  do.  May  be  one  ought  to 
say  —  for  who  knows  tendencies  and  subtle 
ties  of  outcome  —  the  least  harmful  piece  of 
work.  Anyway,  the  thing  is  not  to  spoil  too 
much  time  and  brains  trying  to  be  sure  of  the 
absolutely  best  work  —  but  to  use  all  reason- 


xl  Introduction 

able  effort  to  see,  and  then  —  even  if  in  vexa 
tious  doubt  —  to  strike  into  the  most  probably 
sensible  course,  and  work  like  a  locomotive. 
One  can  at  least  fix  his  course  for  a  year 
ahead,  and  agree  with  his  conscience  to  let 
him  alone  to  work  at  that  for  the  year.  And 
so  year  by  year,  if  no  other  way  is  possible  to 
one's  temperament,  one  can  get  through  a  fine 
stent  of  work  in  a  lifetime. 

Faithfully  yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

TO  E.  B. 

WINDSOR,  June  16,  1883. 

MY  DEAR  NEIGHBOR,  —  I  have  been  making 
a  pilgrimage  to  Ellington  to-day.  I  wish  you 
could  have  gone  with  me.  It  has  been,  to  be 
gin  with,  a  perfect  June  day,  and  you  remember 
the  look  of  it  in  these  regions :  the  blue  sky 
with  white  dapples  in  it,  the  lustrous  leaves 
not  yet  long  enough  out  of  their  sheaths  to 
have  lost  their  tender  new  green,  the  fields  full 
of  daisies  (too  full,  the  honest  farmer  would 
say  —  but  not  too  full  for  the  passing  vaga- 
bones  to  enjoy),  the  laurel  glimmering  in  the 
woods  (remember  it  ?),  the  roads  as  they  run 
through  thickety  places  full  of  the  smell  of 
wild  grape  blossoms  (remember  'em  ?),  the  rye 
soft  and  wavy  (nothing  but  rye  in  the  sandy 
plains  betwixt  here  and  Ellington),  or  a  little 
tobacco  and  spindly  corn  —  plain  living  and 


Introduction  xli 

high  thinking  must  be  the  rule  out  around 
there  among  the  farmers.  The  soil  looks  bet 
ter  in  Vernon. 

Ellington  is  beautiful.  It  might  be  just  a 
little  quiet  in  the  winter,  for  gay  people  like 
you,  but  at  this  season  it  is  great.  There  's  a 
glorious  silence  there.  I  saw  a  man,  and  a  boy 
with  a  toy  wagon,  and  another  man,  all  on  the 
street  at  once.  But  they  went  into  dooryards 
and  were  seen  no  more.  What  a  dignity  and 
placid  reserve  about  the  place  !  The  houses 
all  look  like  the  country-seats  of  persons  of 
great  respectability  who  had  retired  on  a  com 
petence —  and  retired  a  great  ways  while  they 
were  about  it.  And  what  big  houses  they  used 
to  build.  Used  to,  I  say,  because  there  is  n't 
a  house  over  there  that  looks  less  than  a  thou 
sand  years  old :  not  that  they  look  old  as 
seeming  worn  or  rickety  at  all,  but  old  as  being 
very  stately  and  wise  and  imperturbable.  I  am 
struck,  all  about  here  in  Connecticut,  with  the 
well-kept-up  look  of  the  houses.  Paint  must 
be  cheap  —  no,  't  is  n't  that.  Paint  is  probably 
pretty  dear ;  but  they  believe  in  keeping  every 
thing  slicked  up.  Yet  there  are  a  few  oldest  of 
the  old  houses  that  came  out  of  the  ark  I  know. 
One  on  the  road  to  Rockville,  right  hand  side, 
may  be  half  a  mile  or  less  from  your  house, 
never  painted,  all  collapsed,  door  frames  and 
window  frames  slumped  down  on  one  side, 


xlii  Introduction 

everything  leaning,  ready  to  tumble  in  a  heap 
the  next  high  wind. 

I  gazed  west  at  the  green  and  east  at  the 
hills,  and  south  at  the  fields  and  Rockville  in 
the  distance,  and  reflected  that  you  had  done 
the  same  on  similar  days  a  great  many  times. 
Oh,  I  had  quite  a  sentimental  day  of  it,  I  assure 
you.  I  quite  entered  into  your  point  of  view, 
and  it  was  almost  as  if  you  were  there  —  if  you 
only  had  been  aware  of  it. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

TO    C.  T.  H.  P. 

July  16,  1883. 

I  am  just  back  from  a  summering  in  the  an 
cient  and  somnolent  pastures  of  New  England  : 
some  weeks  at  my  old  home,  Windsor,  in  the 
Connecticut  River  valley  —  you  remember  how 
green  and  peaceful  that  region  is,  cornfields  and 
hayfields,  and  elm-shaded  streets  and  maple- 
shaded  houses  (with  green  blinds,  mostly  shut 
tight),  and  patches  of  their  pretty  woods  —  the 
trees  only  shrubs  to  a  Californian  eye,  but 
ever  so  fresh  and  graceful,  and  lustrous  with 
rain  or  dew  :  a  week  in  the  White  Mts.  —  they, 
too,  dwarf  varieties,  but  capable  of  good  color 
ing  and  various  picturesque  "  effects  ;  "  and  a 
few  days  on  the  Maine  seashore. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 


Introduction  xliii 

January  4,  1884. 

You  would  like  this  winter  weather.  Re 
member  how  the  snow  creaks  under  foot,  in 
zero-cold  ?  and  the  good  smell  of  frozen  oxygen, 
and  how  your  mustache  freezes  up,  and  how 
the  fields  of  blue-white  snow  stretch  away  every 
where,  and  Pan  retires  all  his  passions  and 
emotions  from  the  landscape,  and  leaves  only 
pure  intellect  —  cold  and  white  and  clear  ?  — 
One  ought  to  have,  tho',  a  house  about  seven 
miles  square,  full  of  open  fires  and  open  friends 
—  both  kept  well  replenished  and.  poked  up.  I 
should  like  to  see  some  of  these  winter  scenes, 
and  some  of  these  sunsets,  out  of  your  west 
window.  I  wish  you  a  very  happy  rest-of-the- 
year.  Write  when  you  can. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

TO  M.  K. 

August  n,  1883. 

DEAR  MR.  K.  —  Yours  of  4th  was  received 
yesterday,  and  papers  containing  the  same  sad 
news  of  Mr.  Crane's  death.  I  had  heard  that 
he  was  seriously  ill,  but  afterward  that  he  was 
supposed  to  be  out  of  danger ;  so  that  I  was 
greatly  surprised  when  the  news  came.  Some 
how  he  seemed  a  man  that  would  not  die  : 
there  seemed  such  an  amount  of  quick,  active 
life  in  him.  I  always  thought  of  him  as  so 


xliv  Introduction 

thoroughly  alive.  He  always  came  to  my  re 
collection  as  he  looked  when  speaking  in  the 
Club  —  perfectly  quiet  in  manner  and  tone, 
but  every  fibre  of  his  brain  evidently  electric. 
I  had  written  him  a  letter  a  few  weeks  ago, 
from  an  impulse  to  tell  him  how  well  I  appre 
ciated  him  and  liked  him.  I  am  specially  glad 
now  that  I  did.  Another  evidence  that  a  man 
had  better  always  follow  his  first  impulse. 
And  it  was  kept  clear  and  reinforced  all  the 
time  by  an  integrity  of  intellect  that  made  him 
look  first  of  all  to  see  what  was  true.  Other 
men  were  after  the  right  sound,  or  the  prudent 
word,  or  the  polite  one,  or  the  amiable  one,  or 
one  that  would  stop  a  gap  when  ideas  were 
wanting.  He  was  after  the  exact  and  unadul 
terated  fact.  And  my  brain  was  actually  in 
love  with  his,  ever  since  I  first  knew  him. 

Personally  he  never  in  the  least  warmed 
toward  me  ;  but  I  never  in  the  least  looked 
for  that.  One  of  the  things  that  made  me  like 
him  was  that  I  seemed  to  see  that  he  divined 
my  own  limitations,  and  weighed  me  pretty  ac 
curately.  I  admired  him  the  more  from  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  at  all  admire  me,1  and  I 
liked  him  the  more  from  the  fact  that  his  intel 
lectual  honesty  seemed  to  do  justice  to  mine 

1  In  fact,  Mr.  Crane  cherished  a  peculiar  admiration 
for  Professor  Sill. 


Introduction  xlv 

—  a  thing  which  from  boyhood  has  been  a 
permanent  craving  with  me.  Well,  I  didn't 
expect  him  to  die,  and  I  am  mighty  sorry  to 
lose  him  from  this  world.  Yes,  he  is  one  of 
the  men  that  help  one  to  believe  in  the  immor 
tality  of  the  soul.  I  think  Crane  —  the  real 
man  —  must  be,  somewhere,  to-day,  just  as 
truly  as  he  was  a  month  ago. 

I  am  very  much  indebted  to  you  for  your 
letters.    I  don't  at  all  mean  to  have  life  all  slip 
away  without  seeing  you  again  in  the  flesh. 
Faithfully  yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

TO   M.  W.  S. 

CUY.  FALLS,  October  25,  1883. 
Did  you  know  Kant  wrote  some  poems  when 
young  (I  don't  know  but  later  than  young)? 
This  is  one  :  — 

"  Was  auf  das  Leben  f olgt,  deckt  tief e  Finsterniss ; 
Was  uns  zu  thun  gebiihrt,  des  [sic]  sind  wir  nur  gewiss, 
Dem  kann,  wie   Lilienthal,  kein  Tod  die  Hoffnung 

rauben, 

Der  glaubt,  um  recht  zu  thun,  recht  thut,  um  froh  zu 
glauben." 

Have  you  read  Daudet's  bit  of  reminiscence 
of  Turge'nieff  in  "Century"?  And  the  por 
trait  ! 

If  only  men  did  n't  die  just  as  they  are  get 
ting  ripe  and  great !  Death  is  n't  a  gentle 


xlvi  Introduction 

angel.  The  old  view  is  the  true  view.  No 
flowers  can  hide  the  skull.  It  is  not  only 
awful  —  it  is  horrible  that  people  should  die. 
No  —  don't  print  that  poem  of  mine,  "  The 
Morning  Thought "  —  not  now. 

Do  you  happen  to  know  whatever  has  be 
come  of  C ?  I  have  an  old  interest  in 

him,  and  wish  he  might  be  what  he  was  meant 
to  be  by  his  over-sanguine  maker. 

Somehow  I  pity  everybody  lately.  Do  you 
know  anybody  one  could  —  envy,  —  say  —  for 
a  change  ? 

Silence  is  not  golden,  but  leaden  —  or  earthen. 
Argal,  write  ! 

Yrs.  E.  R.  S. 

TO   E.    B. 

[CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,] 

May  12,  1884. 

DEAR  Miss  B.  —  You  recollect  old  Geo. 
Herbert  after  a  season  of  dumps  congratu 
lates  himself  that  once  more  he  doth  "relish 
versing "  —  So  there  are  faint  symptoms  that 
now  that  the  apple-trees  are  at  last  in  blossom 
I  may  relish  writing  to  my  friends.  Alack,  I 
have  not  so  many  to  whom  I  ever  write,  or 
from  whom  I  am  ever  written  to  (I  no  longer 
teach  the  English  language)  that  I  need  wait 
so  long  to  write  at  least  a  brief  scratch.  Yet 


Introduction  xlvii 

you  know  one  will  delay  a  long  time,  thinking 
that  by  and  by  he  will  be  just  in  the  mood  and 
tense.  The  truth  is  I  desire  to  hear  from  you. 
Otherwise  there  are  hardly  enough  apple-trees 
out  to  move  me,  even  this  May  morning.  Is 
it  any  wonder  people  talk  about  the  weather  ? 
For  what  is  there  that  plays  the  deuce  with  us 
like  that.  I  confess  I  am  completely  under  it 
half  the  time  —  and  more  than  half  under,  the 
balance.  Rejoice,  O  young  woman,  in  thy 
Berkeley  !  Why  don't  you  come  on  and  visit 
Connecticut  ?  and  stop  here  on  the  way  !  It 's 
very  pretty  now,  I  assure  you.  Treacherous, 
a  little,  but  full  of  greenery  and  blossoms.  In 
New  England  no  doubt  it  is  still  prettier.  In 
the  past  week  the  sky — even  in  Ohio  —  has 
been  summer  blue.  You  remember  what  that 
is,  between  big  round  pearly  white  clouds  ? 
But  for  six  months  previously  it  was  a  dome 
of  lead,  or  dirty  white.  Now  and  then,  of  a 
rare  day,  the  color  of  a  black  and  blue  spot 
on  a  boy's  knee.  Once  or  twice  in  a  month, 
when  the  sun  tried  to  shine,  the  hue  of  very 
poor  skim  milk.  The  gods  economizing,  no 
doubt,  and  taking  that  mild  drink  in  place  of 
nectar  —  or  slopping  it  around  feeding  their 
cats  —  or  the  Skye  terriers.  If  I  recollect 
aright  you  have  midsummer  in  May,  there. 
Hot  forenoons  and  bootiful  fog  in  the  evening  ? 


xlviii  Introduction 

I  would  like  to  help  you  dig  your  garden.  We 
have  now  apple,  pear,  and  cherry  trees  in  blos 
som,  yellow  currant,  white  and  purple  lilacs, 
flowering  cherry :  pansies,  tulips,  lily  of  the 
valley,  and  genuine  solid  green  turf  sprinkled 
with  gold  buttons  of  dandelions.  The  air  is 
full  of  fragrance.  The  robins,  bluebirds,  wrens, 
and  orioles  are  building  wonderful  nests  all 
over  the  place.  Three  red  and  black  game 
bantams  are  parading  on  the  lawn,  and  seven 
baby  bantams  about  as  big  as  the  end  of  my 
thumb  are  skittering  around  under  the  laylocs. 
Are  you  all  well,  and  good  as  ever  ?  My 
love  to  all  of  both  your  houses.  Don't  wait 
long  before  writing. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

TO  M.  w.  s. 

CUY.  FALLS,  August  16,  1884. 
Saturday. 

I  sent  you  yesterday  a  pretty  long  screed 
about  Emerson,  telling  you  to  use  the  whole  of 
it,  or  part  of  it,  or  very  little  of  it,  or  none  at 
all  of  it.  I  should  be  equally  well  suited  either 
way. 

I  don't  think  other  people  feel  the  way  I  do 
about  that.  When  a  thing  is  written  they  have 
a  trembling  hope,  at  least,  that  it  is  good,  and 
anyhow  wish  to  have  it  used.  But  you  should 


Introduction  xlix 

see  the  equanimity  with  which  I  write  thing 
after  thing  —  both  prose  and  verse  —  and  stow 
them  away,  never  sending  them  anywhere,  or 
thinking  of  printing  any  book  of  them,  at  pre 
sent,  if  ever.  Sometimes  I  do  think  I  will  leave 
a  lot  of  stuff  for  some  one  to  pick  out  a  post 
humous  volume  from  —  but  more  and  more  my 
sober  judgment  tells  me  that  other  people  have 
seen  or  will  see  all  that  I  have,  and  will  state 
it  better. 

It  is  very  strange,  though,  the  difference  be 
tween  my  positiveness  of  judgment  as  to  other 
people's  writings,  and  my  lack  of  any  power  to 
judge  at  all  of  my  own.  It  would  perhaps  be 
an  interesting  psychological  study  for  you  if  I 
could  make  you  see  my  mind  about  this.  I 
judge  swiftly  and  positively  of  literature  in 
general.  For  one  thing,  the  consciousness  has 
more  and  more  been  ground  into  me  that  my 
whole  point  of  view  is  hopelessly  different  from 
that  of  people  in  general  —  I  mean  educated 
and  intelligent  people.  Nor  do  I  have  the 
compensation  of  feeling  this  difference  a  supe 
riority.  I  should  have  made  an  excellent  citi 
zen  of  some  other  planet,  may  be,  and  they  got 
me  on  the  wrong  one. 

I  don't  feel  the  least  fitness  for  a  writer. 
When  anything  of  mine  is  to  be  printed  I  have 
often  a  horrid  sense  —  now  the  ringers  of  the 


1  Introduction 

whole  universe  will  be  pointing  at  this  fellow 
as  an  example  of  a  wretch  that  has  mistaken 
his  vocation.  When  it  is  once  printed,  I  feel  in 
stantly  relieved,  in  the  knowledge  that  nobody 
reads  things  —  after  all  —  or  cares  whether 
they  are  good  or  not.  The  fingers  I  perceive 
to  be  all  pointing  at  more  conspicuous  objects, 
or  being  harmlessly  sucked  in  the  mouth  :  so 
I  don't  care  a  bit  —  till  the  next  thing  is  about 
to  be  printed.  The  "  Century  "  has  had  some 
time  a  sonnet  of  mine.  You  would  not  believe 
how  I  have  actually  shuddered  internally  each 
month  with  fear  that  now  I  am  going  to  be 
stuck  up  on  a  post  without  a  rag  on  me  at  last, 
and  my  nightmare  was  to  come  true. 

I  don't  believe  I  ever  shall  write  a  thing 
that  is  really  good.  Yet,  with  it  all,  I  have 
unbounded  conceit  of  my  own  judgment  about 
the  things  I  feel  I  see  clearly. 

Queer,  queer  fellows  we  all  are.  Must  be 
fun  for  the  bigger  fellows  that  hide  in  the 
clouds  and  watch  us. 

Yours  —  and  I  'd  like  to  hear  how  you  are. 

E.  R.  S. 


TO 


C.  F.,  November  i.     Monday. 
The  trouble   about  signing   one's   name  to 
poems  is,  that  stupid  people  (and  we  are  all 


Introduction  li 

pretty  stupid  sometimes)  persist  in  thinking 
every  word  literally  autobiographical.  I  have 
had  enough  annoyance  from  that  to  sicken  any 
one  of  ever  writing  verse  again,  or  anything 
else  but  arithmetics  and  geographies.  Even 
then  somebody  would  hate  you  for  your  view  of 
the  Indian  Ocean,  or  fear  the  worst  about  your 
character  because  of  your  treatment  of  the 
Least  Common  Multiple.  People  are  getting 
to  write  anonymously  now  and  then.  (You 
didn't  write  "The  Breadwinners,"  did  you? 
Perhaps  the  Janitor  at  the  University  did  — 
or  Bacon  the  printer,  or  Hy.  Ward  Beecher.) 

As  to  French  poetry,  I  know  there  's  another 
side.  I  believe  as  I  used  to,  about  the  mass 
of  French  writers.  It 's  only  here  and  there  a 
Geo.  Sand,  or  a  delicate  poet.  As  to  German 
—  Heine  was  a  Jew  of  the  Jews.  You  might 
as  well  instance  Job  as  a  German.  A  friend 
of  mine  calls  certain  graceful  verse  "unsub 
stantial."  It 's  true  much  of  the  French  is  so. 

Your  test  is  the  best  one :  what  sticks  in  the 
mind.  Or  as  some  one  puts  it,  as  a  test  of 
great  writers,  whose  work  has  most  entered 
into  the  world's  intellectual  life  ? 

Yours,  E.  R.  S. 


Hi  Introduction 

TO  H.  H. 

GUY.  FALLS,  January  23,  1885. 

DEAR  HENRY,  -  Yours  of  2ist  rec'd. 
Thank  you  for  answer  to  my  question. 

As  to  whether  I  would  accept  a  certain  offer, 
if  made  :  —  there  would  be  two  very  serious 
obstacles.  First,  that  I  am  not  the  man,  in 
several  important  respects,  to  fill  the  place 
well.  I  know  the  sort  of  man  it  requires,  and 
that  I  am  not  the  one.  Second,  that  I  could 
not  leave  here  at  present.  My  plain  duty  is 
right  here,  and  it  would  never  do  to  run  away 
from  it. 

Very  good  of  you  to  think  of  such  a  thing. 
But  a  man  for  that  place  should  be  picked  out 
by  his  enemies,  not  his  friends.  There  is  a 
great  opportunity  there. 

As  ever,  yours. 

TO   THE   SAME 

Neither  ought  I  to  give  you  the  impression 
that  the  religious  question  is  my  only  reason 
for  not  encouraging  any  effort  to  have  me 
selected  at  Yale  for  that  vacant  chair.  There 
are  reasons  arising  from  my  own  personal  dis 
abilities,  into  which  it  is  no  use  to  go.  .  .  . 
Again,  I  should  be  sorry  if  I  had  made  you 
suppose  that  I  am  one  of  those  bull-headed 


Introduction  liii 

enthusiasts  who  wishes  to  foist  his  own  hobby 
into  every  company.  I  remember  one  of  my 
students,  since  graduating,  giving  me  warm 
praise  for  the  delicacy  I  had  seemed  to  show 
in  respecting  the  religious  points  of  view  of 
my  classes,  always. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  you  cannot,  of  course, 
realize  (till  you  have  come  to  teach  the  subject) 
how  all  our  best  literature  in  this  century  — 
and  a  good  deal  of  it  in  the  last  century  — 
dips  continually  into  this  underlying  stream  of 
philosophical  thought,  and  ethical  feeling.  "  In 
Memoriam,"  for  example,  is  one  of  the  poems 
I  read  with  my  Senior  classes.  You  may  dis 
cuss  its  rhythms,  its  epithets,  its  metaphors, 
its  felicities  and  infelicities  as  Art,  —  you  are 
still  on  the  surface  of  it.  The  fact  is  that  a 
thinking  man  put  a  good  lot  of  his  views  of 
things  in  general  into  it  —  and  those  views  and 
his  feelings  about  them  are  precisely  the  "  lit 
erature  "  there  is  in  the  thing.  And  the  study 
of  it,  as  literature,  should  transfer  these  views 
and  feelings  straight  and  clear  to  the  brain  of 
the  student.  So  of  "  Middlemarch,"  or  "  Ro- 
mola,"  or  Hume's  Essays,  or  "Faust,"  or 
"  Manfred,"  or  Renan's  "  Souvenirs  de  Pen- 
fance." 

The  more  you  think  of  it  the  more  you  will 
come  to  see  that  the  moment  you  drive  the 


Ivi  Introduction 

sich  ein  er  besitze  Erfahrung  und  Klugheit ;  ei 
legte  nicht  den  leisesten  Zweifel  dass  alle  seine 
Voraussetzungen  richtig  seien  ;  er  ahnte  nicht 
dass  das  Leben  unendlich  mannigfaltig  ist,  und 
sich  niemals  wiederholt." 

So,  to  live  is  more  than  to  read,  and  one 
might  know  all  things  and  miss  of  everything. 
And  so,  if  life  is  endlessly  manifold,  we  may 
hope  for  good  and  great  things,  here  or  here, 
after. 


Mature 

OUR   TAME   HUMMINGBIRDS 

HY  is  it  that  everybody  is  interested 
in  birds  ?  You  may  sit  on  a  fence  in 
the  fields,  or  on  a  fallen  tree-trunk  in 
the  forest,  and  find  all  nature  "  weary,  stale, 
flat,  and  unprofitable,"  till  some  bit  of  a  bird 
lights  near  you.  Instantly  the  scene  is  ani 
mated.  You  watch  him  plume  his  wing,  or  flit 
about  with  one  bright  eye  on  you,  and  you  see 
nothing  else  as  long  as  he  is  there.  Is  it  one 
chief  element  of  the  interest  he  excites  that  you 
never  know  what  he  will  do  next  ? 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  too,  that  our  interest  in 
the  feathered  creatures  is  in  inverse  ratio  to 
their  size.  Except,  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  the 
peacock,  which  belongs  to  the  guild  of  aes 
thetes,  and  enjoys  an  ephemeral  eminence  on 
that  account,  we  do  not  seem  to  care  much  for 
big  birds.  Nobody  keeps  a  pet  ostrich.  The 
American  eagle  is  not  found  in  a  tame  state 
except  in  oratory.  Even  the  dodo  is  only  in 
teresting  because  extinct.  Nobody  is  so  weak 


2'  -  Nature 

as  to  feel  flattered  by  the  confidence  of  a  goose 
or  a  parrot.  But  it  really  seems  an  attention 
when  a  chipping-bird  lingers  near  us.  And 
we  are  very  proud  that  the  chattering  wren 
slips  in  and  out  of  its  box  in  our  presence, 
just  as  if  we  were  a  mere  tree. 

Somebody  explains  our  fondness  for  birds 
by  their  being  so  perpetually  happy ;  and  in 
stances  our  interest  in  seeing  children  play 
about  us  as  a  case  of  the  same  kind.  But  I 
think  there  must  be  some  deeper  cause.  There 
are  more  subtile  sympathies  between  us  than 
through  happiness  merely.  The  birds,  for  that 
matter,  are  not  always  happy.  Some  of  them 
sing  a  minor  strain.  We  cannot  understand 
the  words  always  (my  wife  says  the  catbirds 
sing  in  French),  but  the  tone  certainly  some 
times  has  tears  in  it :  unshed  tears,  —  for  I 
think  the  birds  never  cry,  —  but  the  sadder 
for  that.  Of  course  I  understand  that  the 
sadness  is  often  only  of  our  bringing;  and 
that  we  find  the  song  sad  just  because  it  is  so 
glad.  As  Burns  hath  it :  — 

"  Thou  'It  break  my  heart,  thou  bonnie  bird, 

That  sings  upon  the  bough ; 
Thou  minds  me  o'  the  happy  days 
When  my  fause  luve  was  true. 

"  Thou  'It  break  my  heart,  thou  bonnie  bird, 
That  sings  beside  thy  mate  ; 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  3 

For  sae  I  sat,  and  sae  I  sang, 
An'  wist  na  o'  my  fate." 

But  sometimes  the  sadness  is  in  the  song  it 
self.  I  have  heard  genuine  threnodies  when 
the  bird's  mate  has  been  slain.  Our  interest 
in  children  comes  from  the  fact,  rather,  that 
we  ourselves  were  children,  not  long  ago.  And 
I  incline  to  think  it  may  be  so  with  regard  to 
the  birds.  It  is  possible  that  after  coming  up 
the  line  of  evolution  through  fishes,  reptiles, 
and  birds,  we  skipped  the  lower  mammals,  and 
came  at  once  to  Man.  The  birds,  in  this  way, 
are  a  reminiscence  to  us.  That  is  where  we 
were,  last.  Pars  quorum  fui,  we  feel,  as  we 
watch  their  social  and  domestic  life.  Does  not 
every  child  try  to  fly  ?  And  do  we  not  depict 
the  angels  with  feathered  wings  —  as  the  little 
girl  said,  "with  fedders  like  a  hen"?  Not 
only  does  the  play  of  birds  seem  very  human 
and  childlike  to  us,  —  their  chasing  each  other 
about  for  pure  fun,  their  frolicking  at  the  bath 
tub  instead  of  settling  down  to  the  serious  busi 
ness  of  the  hour,  their  sham  fights,  their  gym 
nastics,  their  playing  tag  till  dark,  their  sense 
of  humor  as  shown  in  various  pranks,  —  like 
the  blue  jay's  plugging  pebbles  into  the  acorn- 
holes  "  to  fool  the  woodpeckers  "  (as  a  genial 
scientist  suggests);  but  their  habits  of  work, 
too,  are  much  more  like  our  human  lot  than 


4  Nature 

those  of  other  animals.  There  is  no  house- 
builder  and  housekeeper,  short  of  the  genus 
homo,  like  a  bird.  And  no  mothers  do  so  much 
for  their  babies,  in  feeding  them  or  fighting 
for  them,  as  human  and  bird  mothers  do.  In 
no  other  walk  of  life,  either,  will  the  male  par 
ent  take  the  place  of  the  female,  when  she  is 
gone,  with  such  solicitude  and  perfect  care  for 
the  offspring.  Indeed,  the  human  male  only 
humbly  imitates  the  feathered  one  here,  and  at 
a  considerable  distance. 

The  hummingbird,  among  all  the  feathered 
creation,  seems  a  creature  by  itself.  One  may 
easily  live  a  lifetime,  even  in  our  latitude, 
where  they  are  common  enough,  nesting  and 
rearing  their  young  here,  and  staying  with  us 
the  whole  summer,  without  ever  making  close 
acquaintance  with  this  least  of  birds.  I  even 
saw,  not  long  ago,  and  in  a  scientific  journal  of 
repute,  the  assertion  made  confidently  —  as  if 
it  were  one  of  the  facts  that  every  schoolboy 
knows  —  that  the  hummingbird  has  no  song ! 
One  might  as  well  assert  that  the  canary  or  the 
nightingale  has  no  song  —  or  the  hen.  Brilliant 
and  conspicuous  as  are  its  colors,  and  close  as 
it  constantly  comes  to  human  beings  in  sharing 
with  them  their  intimacies  with  the  garden 
flowers,  its  restlessness  and  swiftness  of  flight 
enable  it  to  elude  all  ordinary  observation.  Its 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  5 

wings,  indeed,  might  be  said  to  be  actually 
invisible.  They  vanish  from  sight  and  fade 
into  thin  air,  except  when  the  bird  is  at  rest ; 
and  it  is  almost  never  at  rest.  And  who  ever 
saw  the  feet  of  a  hummingbird  ?  It  does  not 
seem  an  earth  inhabitant  at  all.  It  flashes 
down  upon  a  flower-bed,  like  a  mere  reflection 
of  light  thrown  by  a  restless  mirror,  and 
flashes  off  again.  It  is  a  sprite,  an  elfin  of 
the  elements.  Few  persons  ever  find  its  nest 
or  see  its  eggs  or  young.  People  do  not  see  it 
at  work  or  at  play,  or  engaged  in  any  of  the 
ordinary  business  of  human  or  bird  life.  It 
dashes  on  the  scene  and  away,  and  has  done 
nothing  but  dip  a  rapid  bill  into  a  flower-cup 
or  two.  It  is  the  shooting  star  of  the  garden 
firmament.  It  has  no  known  orbits,  and  the 
most  conspicuous  thing  it  ever  does  is  to  vanish. 
Accordingly,  it  was  not  so  much  because  of 
its  beauty,  in  its  burnished  mail  of  golden  green, 
or  its  elfin  symmetry  and  loveliness  of  tiny  out 
lines,  as  because  of  this  spritelike,  unapproach 
able  character,  that  I  always  had  longed  to 
have  a  tame  hummingbird.  This  coy,  evanes 
cent,  ethereal  sprite,  owning  no  kinship  with 
ordinary  things  of  earth,  —  this  glint  of  ani 
mated  sunshine,  this  star  gleam,  this  fleck  of 
flying  rainbow,  —  I  wanted  to  call  him  mine; 
to  have  personal  relations  with  him  ;  to  wink 


6  Nature 

at  him  and  have  him  respond  as  one  who  per 
ceives  the  point ;  to  have  him  perch  on  my 
finger,  and  perhaps  —  after  a  long  time  and 
after  infinite  proofs  of  reliable  friendship  on 
my  part  —  to  have  him  permit  me  very  lightly 
to  stroke  those  wonderful  metallic  feathers 
adown  his  little  iridescent  breast. 

Moreover,  they  are  so  small.  I  wanted  to 
possess  —  to  have  and  to  hold — this  least  bit 
of  a  wee  speck  of  an  intellectual  being,  —  the 
tiniest  mite  of  a  body  in  which  soul  seems  able 
to  lodge  securely,  —  real  soul,  by  the  test  of 
being  capable  of  mutual  communication  with 
the  soul  of  man.  I  never  wanted  one  to  cage 
it  up,  as  people  sometimes  cruelly  do,  and  see 
it  beat  its  poor  little  life  out  against  the  bars ; 
but  to  take  one  young,  and  tame  it,  and  make 
friends  with  it  as  one  does  with  a  horse,  or  a 
dog,  —  that  would  be  different. 

So  when,  one  June  morning,  I  discovered 
the  nest  on  the  limb  of  the  old  apple-tree  by 
the  greenhouse,  and  had  got  the  step-ladder 
and  clambered  up  quietly,  and  set  eyes  on  the 
two  little  white  sugar-plums  of  eggs,  I  instantly 
perceived  the  possibilities  they  contained,  and 
nodded  knowingly  to  them,  as  who  should  say, 
"  At  last  I  have  you  !  " 

The  nest  was  about  as  large  externally  as 
the  half  of  an  average-sized  hen's  egg  —  a  little 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  j 

soft,  cottony  cup  of  downy  texture,  glued  to 
gether  with  what  the  books  declare  to  be  the 
bird's  saliva,  but  what  seems  more  like  cob 
web,  gathered  and  used  while  fresh  and  gluti 
nous.  All  the  outside  was  shingled  over  with 
irregular  bits  of  lichen.  It  was  built  on  a 
smooth  apple-tree  bough  less  than  half  an  inch 
in  diameter ;  the  bottom  set  firmly  down  over 
the  bough,  and  the  line  of  lichen-bits  running 
all  the  way  round  underneath,  apparently  with 
the  mere  purpose  of  making  it  all  seem  a  part 
of  the  tree.  The  result  was,  at  any  rate,  that 
the  nest  looked  like  only  a  little  gray  knot, 
which  no  one  in  the  world  would  have  noticed, 
unless  specially  searching  for  it.  In  the  small, 
soft  interior  lay  the  two  eggs,  each  about 
three  eighths  of  an  inch  long,  cylindrical,  with 
rounded  ends,  instead  of  ovate  like  ordinary 
eggs,  and  quite  like  two  little  clumsy  mites 
of  sugar-plums.  The  bough  on  which  rested 
this  tiny  flower-cup  of  a  nest  hung  some  ten 
feet  from  the  ground,  and  directly  over  a  fre 
quented  garden  walk  :  a  singular  choice  of  po 
sition,  but  the  builder  no  doubt  trusted  to  the 
invisibility  both  of  itself  and  its  habitation. 
Round  the  trunk  of  the  old  apple-tree  was  a 
rustic  bench,  where  my  wife  and  I  passed  many 
an  hour,  watching  our  fairy  and  her  lichen- 
thatched  home.  For  the  first  day  or  two  of 


8  Nature 

our  observation,  the  little  body  was  rather  im 
patient  of  our  close  proximity  ;  and  we  used 
to  drop  our  voices  to  a  whisper,  and  keep  our 
posture  of  the  moment  unmoved,  however  in 
convenient  this  might  happen  to  be,  when  we 
heard  the  low  humming  that  announced  her 
approach.  She  would  fly  nearly  to  the  nest, 
then  suddenly  stop  and  hold  herself  poised  in 
the  air,  putting  her  head  on  one  side,  and  fix 
ing  one  bright  little  black  eye  on  us ;  then  she 
would  dart  down  and  inspect  us  more  closely. 
Apparently  detecting  by  some  subtle  sixth 
sense  our  friendly  intentions,  she  would  flash 
back  to  the  nest,  pause  an  instant  above  it, 
then  drop  suddenly  and  softly  in,  leaving  no 
thing  visible  but  a  bit  of  tail  slanted  up  at  one 
side,  and  the  rigid  little  bill,  elevated  at  an 
angle  of  forty-five  degrees,  at  the  other. 

Such  inefficient  setting  one  never  saw.  The 
longest  time  I  ever  knew  her  to  stay  on  the 
nest,  in  the  daytime,  was  fifteen  minutes. 
Oftener  it  was  but  three  or  four.  After  such 
a  terribly  wearisome  and  monotonous  stay  as 
this,  she  would  be  off  like  a  bullet  across  the 
garden,  or  in  through  the  upper  windows  of 
the  greenhouse.  In  good  bright  weather  she 
would  be  away  from  five  to  fifteen  minutes, 
leaving  the  sunshine  to  brood  her  twin  trea 
sures. 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  9 

For  my  own  part,  I  gave  up  all  hopes  that 
such  shiftless  conduct  would  ever  hatch  out 
anything.  It  looked  like  the  merest  playing 
at  sitting,  as  children  play  with  dolls  and  doll 
cradles.  All  day  long  she  would  be  off  and 
on  in  this  way,  sometimes  remaining  but  thirty 
seconds  on  the  nest.  Of  course  nothing  could 
ever  come  of  it.  But  my  wife  had  more  confi 
dence  in  the  maternal  instinct,  even  the  minute 
thimbleful  of  it  for  which  there  was  room  in 
that  small  bird-breast.  Depend  upon  it  (she 
would  say),  the  little  creature  knows  what  she 
is  about. 

In  fact,  she  did.  One  morning,  on  making 
my  regular  excursion  to  the  top  of  the  step- 
ladder,  I  saw  that  a  miraculous  transformation 
had  taken  place  ;  a  metamorphosis  as  wonder 
ful  as  any  that  Ovid  sang.  The  white  sugar 
plums  had  turned  into  two  ugly  little  dark 
bugs,  soft,  sparsely  thatched  with  black  fuzz, 
eyes  unopened,  tailless,  and  with  no  other  sign 
of  a  bill  than  a  horny  point  on  that  end  which 
one  was,  from  this  circumstance,  led  to  sup 
pose  the  head.  Moreover,  the  minute  black 
monsters  were  palpitating,  in  a  lumpy  sort  of 
way,  with  life. 

The  mother-bird  now  became  a  little  less  in 
efficient.  Indeed,  she  showed  signs  of  excite 
ment;  darting  about,  perhaps,  a  thought  more 


10  Nature 

nervously  and  swiftly,  always  lighting  on  some 
twig  close  by  the  nest,  or  upon  its  edge,  in 
stead  of  stopping  to  plume  her  feathers  at 
some  distant  point  in  her  apple-tree.  She  de 
veloped  now,  too,  a  ferocity  toward  other  birds 
that  kept  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
nest  free  of  all  such  feathered  tramps  and 
brigands.  Not  a  robin  or  catbird,  especially, 
could  approach  that  side  of  the  tree  without 
encountering  a  meteoric  descent  upon  him, 
and  a  sharp  little  war-cry.  Nor  could  we  go 
up  the  steps  and  peep  into  the  nest,  at  first, 
without  hearing  a  high-keyed  humming  about 
our  ears,  and  finding  a  threatening  bill  angrily 
aimed  at  our  faces. 

But,  now  that  my  birds  were  in  the  bush, 
how  was  I  to  have  them  actually  in  the  hand, 
as  tamed  and  domestic  fowls  ?  If  I  waited  till 
they  were  fledged,  they  would  be  off,  and  leave 
me  only  the  empty  nest.  If  I  took  them  be 
fore  they  were  fledged  and  weaned,  they  would 
infallibly  die  on  my  hands;  for  how  could  I, 
a  big,  blundering,  featherless  mammal,  hope 
to  take  any  effectual  care  of  two  such  delicate 
sprites  ?  Plainly  there  was  but  one  way  to 
succeed  :  the  mother-bird  must  somehow  be 
employed  to  nurse  them  for  me.  But  if  I  were 
to  cage  her,  as  I  could  now  easily  have  done, 
so  much  accustomed  to  our  presence  had  she 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  11 

become,  the  result  would  be  what  it  always  is 
when  people  try  to  cage  grown  hummingbirds : 
she  would  straightway  die,  and  leave  her  babies 
to  starve.  No,  the  mother  must  be  free,  and 
the  young  ones  caged.  That  was  the  problem. 
So  I  set  about  caging  the  nest  and  young 
ones.  Taking  a  hemispherical  wire-gauze  dish- 
cover,  which  I  purloined  from  the  pantry,  I 
fixed  a  wire-gauze  bottom  to  it,  in  such  a  way 
that  I  could  at  first  leave  it  open,  and  shut  it 
day  by  day,  by  degrees.  After  hanging  this  in 
the  tree  near  the  nest  for  a  couple  of  days,  to 
become  a  familiar  sight,  I  hung  it,  bottom-side 
upward,  up  around  the  nest.  Then,  little  by 
little,  I  closed  the  door,  till  the  mother  could 
reach  her  charges  only  through  a  round  hole 
just  over  the  nest.  All  this  she  accepted  so 
quietly,  and  learned  so  readily  to  use,  that 
(noticing  some  fluttering  motions  in  the  baby 
sprites,  and  knowing  they  would  soon  be  fol 
lowing  their  mother  through  the  hole  in  their 
roof,  I  now  substituted  a  roomy  cage,  some 
two  and  a  half  feet  long,  made  of  wire  gauze, 
with  a  sliding  wooden  bottom,  in  which,  gradu 
ally  as  before,  I  inclosed  the  nest  from  below. 
The  mother-bird  accepted  this  also  as  some 
harmless  new  freak  of  the  great,  homely  ani 
mal  that  had  so  long  been  bothering  about  her 
premises,  —  something  for  which  he  was  prob- 


12  Nature 

ably  not  to  blame,  and  which  it  was  her  duty 
not  to  make  a  fuss  about.  She  quickly  learned 
to  go  in  through  the  two-inch  aperture  that  I 
had  left  in  the  sliding  roof ;  but  she  had  diffi 
culty  in  finding  her  way  out.  Did  it  need  all 
the  stimulus  of  seeing  the  little  ones  below 
to  bring  her  whole  microscopic  mind  to  bear 
on  the  question  ?  At  all  events,  such  was  the 
case.  Facilis  deseensus  Avcrni ;  but  in  order 
to  her  emerging  again  it  became  necessary  for 
me  to  stand  an  intermittent  guard  over  my 
contrivance,  all  day  long,  pulling  the  string  to 
let  her  out,  then  shutting  the  cage  after  her 
(all  but  her  necessary  doorway  for  entrance 
again),  since  the  young  ones  now  began  to 
take  short  trial  flights  within  the  cage. 

And  now  came  a  tragical  chapter  of  the 
story.  The  poor  little  mother  flew  in,  one 
morning  very  early,  before  any  one  was  on 
guard  to  let  her  out.  Finding  no  outlet,  and 
imagining,  perhaps,  that  her  babies  would  go 
hungry  too  long,  or,  it  may  be,  frightened  by 
some  outside  bird  that  had  glared  in  on  them, 
she  had  apparently  flown  round  and  round  the 
cage  till  exhausted  ;  for  I  found  her,  when  I 
paid  my  customary  visit  to  the  tree,  lying  dead 
in  a  corner,  as  if  heartbroken  with  hope  de 
ferred.  Most  cordially  then  I  wished  that  I 
had  left  the  wee  birdies  alone  ;  and  I  made 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  13 

bitter  reflections  —  bitter  with  the  bitterness  of 
being  too  late,  as  reflections  on  our  sins  are  apt 
to  be  —  about  the  invariable  evils  of  man's  in 
terference  with  nature.  "  Bring  back  "  (I  said, 
taking  myself  metaphorically  by  .  the  ear),  — 
"  bring  back,  if  you  can,  that  bright  little  life 
you  have  wantonly  destroyed." 

But  the  orphans  were  now  fairly  on  my 
hands,  and  it  was  the  time  for  action,  not  for 
useless  remorse.  Do  you  ask,  Where  was  the 
other  parent  ?  Alas,  there  was  none.  Either 
the  male  had  been  killed  —  caught  by  a  cat, 
perhaps,  for  that  does  sometimes  happen  (and 
is  a  wonderful  instance  of  the  instantaneous 
correlation  of  mind  and  muscle  on  the  part  of 
the  cat  tribe),  or  else  he  was  a  very  bad  father 
indeed.  For  the  only  sign  of  a  male  bird  I 
ever  saw  about  the  nest  was  one  morning  when 
a  male  darted  up  to  the  cage  with  his  fiery 
throat  flashing,  shot  a  fierce  glance  in  at  the 
young  ones,  then  vanished  for  good. 

I  accepted  the  situation,  took  the  infants  in 
charge,  and  did  nothing  else  for  a  week,  to 
speak  of,  but  feed  them  with  syrup  and  watch 
their  development.  It  was  the  third  of  July 
when  the  mother-bird  died,  and  my  Independ 
ence  Day  was  devoted  to  dipping  one  finger 
into  loaf-sugar-and-water,  every  fifteen  minutes, 
and  holding  the  drop  to  my  birds  to  sip. 


14  Nature 

It  was  now  my  wife's  turn  to  show  a  lack  of 
faith  —  naturally,  since  it  was  this  time  faith 
in  her  husband  that  was  required,  not  faith  in 
nature.  It  was  preposterous,  she  said,  to  sup 
pose  that  I  could  raise  them  on  nothing  but 
sugar-and-water ;  for  did  not  all  the  latest  or 
nithological  treatises  say  that  hummingbirds 
feed  mainly  on  insects,  seeking  flowers  for  this 
animal  food,  and  not  for  honey?  And  did  not 
Every  Schoolboy  know  that  nitrogenous  food 
was  necessary  for  the  growth  of  tissue  and  the 
support  of  animal  life  ? 

Nevertheless,  I  persevered,  and  so  did  the 
birds.  Daily  their  down  developed  into  won 
derful  feathers,  and  daily  their  flights  about 
the  roomy  cage  were  stronger  and  longer,  and 
their  pulls  deeper  at  the  cup  of  sugar-and- 
water.  The  result  is  (I  may  as  well  say  now) 
that  here  are  the  two  small  gnomes,  at  this 
very  hour,  —  a  month  and  a  half  after  I  under 
took  their  weaning,  —  flying  about  the  room, 
lighting  indifferently  on  my  hair,  my  ink  bottle, 
or  my  penholder,  living  refutations  of  the 
food  theories  of  the  ornithologist  and  his  cele 
brated  fellow  pundit,  Every  Schoolboy.  Where 
they  get  their  nitrogen  I  cannot  say  ;  but  what 
they  feed  on  is  plain  sugar-and-water ;  and  they 
seem  to  have  made  a  wonderful  deal  of  blood, 
bone,  and  preternaturally  active  nerve  and 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  15 

muscular  tissue  out  of  it.  It  is  not  their  fault 
—  they  have  never  been  taught  their  letters. 
If  they  had  read  the  standard  scientific  works 
on  the  subject,  they  would  doubtless  have  done 
their  best  to  regulate  their  digestion  and  assimi 
lation  more  in  accordance  therewith. 

For  the  first  two  weeks  of  their  orphanage  I 
am  certain  they  had  no  other  nourishment  but 
the  syrup,  for  they  only  fed  as  I  offered  this  to 
them,  on  my  finger,  or  on  a  flower  which  I 
sometimes  would  dip  in  it.  to  give  it,  if  pos 
sible,  some  tang  of  the  natural  garden  flavor. 
Of  late  I  have  occasionally  fed  to  them,  in  the 
way  of  confectionery,  newly  hatched  spiders, 
suspended  on  a  thread  of  cobweb.  It  is  not 
so  easy  for  them  to  take  an  insect.  Their 
natural  method  of  doing  so,  I  am  convinced, 
is  by  flying  at  them  with  bill  wide  open  (some 
three-quarters  of  an  inch,  at  the  tip),  and  so 
literally  "  putting  themselves  outside  "  of  their 
prey.  They  seem  incapable  of  seizing  an 
insect  by  the  bill  point  and  working  it  back 
ward  into  the  gullet.  Their  tongue  is  a  softish, 
flexible  double  tube,  very  perfectly  adapted  for 
sucking  honey-dew  from  the  flower-tubes,  but 
(it  appears  to  me)  not  at  all  adapted  to  work 
morsels  backward  the  whole  length  of  the  bill. 
For  this  reason  I  doubt  the  statement  of  the 
books  that  their  object  in  thrusting  the  bill  into 


16  Nature 

flowers  is  to  capture  insects,  rather  than  honey- 
dew.  At  least,  I  am  certain  that  my  two  bant 
lings  never  take  an  insect  except  by  thrusting 
the  mouth,  open  far  back,  forward  around  it. 
Nor  did  I  ever  see  any  signs  of  the  mother's 
catching  an  insect  to  feed  her  young.  Her 
method  of  feeding  was  to  join  bills  with  one  of 
them  for  some  fifteen  seconds  at  a  time,  evi 
dently  feeding  it  bird-/#/,  or  food  already  par 
tially  digested  for  them.  I  might  add,  as  to 
this  point,  that  I  never  could  detect  a  hum 
mingbird  in  the  act  of  opening  its  bill  in  a 
flower,  in  any  such  way  as  to  be  able  to  take  in 
an  insect.  The  action  of  the  bill  and  head,  on 
the  contrary,  seems  precisely  that  of  my  pets 
when  sipping  syrup  from  their  cup.  Yet  they 
are  fond  of  little  spiders,  and  such  small  deer, 
and  no  doubt  capture  many  of  them  while  on 
the  wing. 

Through  the  warm  weeks  of  July,  I  kept  the 
cage  still  in  the  tree  where  the  babes  were 
born,  lowering  it  by  a  cord  and  pulley  to  feed 
them,  and  hoisting  it  again  to  sway  among  the 
dancing  apple  leaves.  When  the  nights  be 
came  cool,  they  were  carried  into  the  green 
house  to  sleep,  staying  out  through  the  day. 
But  now  that  autumn  weather  has  set  in,  with 
frequent  clouds,  and  thinner  sunshine,  they 
live  altogether  with  their  foster  parents  in  the 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  17 

house,  where  they  are  carried  from  room  to 
room  to  follow  the  sun,  for  the  sunshine  is 
their  life.  Nothing  ever  so  impressed  me  with 
the  absolute  dependence  of  all  living  things  on 
the  great  source  of  light,  heat,  electricity,  and 
of  whatever  as  yet  unknown  forces  are  inter 
mingled  in  the  mysterious  movements  of  vital 
ity,  as  the  sight  of  the  hummingbirds  and  their 
relations  to  the  sun.  When  a  sudden  thick 
cloud  obscures  the  warm  beams,  they  feel  the 
change  instantly.  In  ten  seconds  their  vivacity 
has  vanished.  They  become  quiet,  the  wings 
droop  a  little,  the  sparkle  of  the  eye  is  dulled, 
the  feathers  are  puffed  up.  When  the  sun 
breaks  out  again,  it  is  as  if  the  ray  struck  them 
off  the  perch  into  mid-flight,  kindling  all  their 
vivid  intensity  of  life  at  once.  Decidedly,  the 
sun-worshipers  of  old  had  some  reason  on 
their  side. 

Every  day  they  have  an  hour  or  two  of  free 
flight  about  the  rooms,  and  this  is  their  great 
play  spell.  School  is  out,  and  they  chase  each 
other  with  all  manner  of  pretty  antics  from  one 
extemporized  perch  to  another.  One  of  their 
favorite  resting-places  is  the  window-seat,  where 
they  hover  about  the  glass,  —  recognizing  it  for 
glass  as  well  as  any  grown  folks,  and  never 
bumping  against  it,  to  hurt  themselves,  —  gaz 
ing  out  upon  the  great  world,  and  sometimes 


18  Nature 

catching  a  minute  fly.  This  capture,  however, 
seems  to  be  more  for  fun  than  food  ;  for  no 
matter  how  few  or  how  many  they  find,  every 
ten  minutes  or  so  they  buzz  back  to  the  cage, 
drop  dexterously  through  the  small  scuttle- 
hole  in  its  roof,  and  seek  their  syrup-cup  for 
luncheon. 

Of  course  the  babes  were  christened  while 
still  very  young.  The  male  is  yclept  Peasblos- 
som ;  the  female,  Cobweb.  It  will  suggest 
itself  as  an  obvious  objection  that  the  Mid 
summer  Night's  "  Cobweb  "  was  addressed  as 
"  Master,"  not  "  Miss."  And  again  as  "  Mon 
sieur,"  as  where  the  transmogrified  weaver 
exclaims  :  — 

"  Monsieur  Cobweb,  good  monsieur,  get 
your  weapons  in  your  hand,  and  kill  me  a  red- 
hipped  humble-bee  on  the  top  of  a  thistle  ; 
and,  good  monsieur,  bring  me  the  honey-bag. 
Do  not  fret  yourself  too  much  in  the  action, 
monsieur ;  and,  good  monsieur,  have  a  care 
the  honey-bag  break  not  ;  I  would  be  loath  to 
have  you  overflown  with  the  honey-bag,  sei 
gnior."  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
the  speaker  was  in  a  state  of  mind  favorable  to 
accurate  observation,  or  whether  the  respective 
styles  of  dress  of  gentleman  and  lady  fairies 
were  familiar  to  him.  And  then,  too,  he  was 
only  a  donkey,  after  all. 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  19 

Cobweb  has  been  true  to  the  enterprising 
nature  of  her  sex  in  twice  getting  away,  while 
out  of  doors.  On  both  occasions  she  made 
straight  for  their  old  home,  the  apple-tree. 
The  first  time,  I  climbed  up  into  the  tree, 
gently  put  my  hand  over  her,  and  brought 
her  back,  unresisting,  but  not  without  some 
squeaks  of  protest.  The  second  time,  she 
returned  of  her  own  accord,  after  a  few  min 
utes'  flight,  induced  thereto  partly  by  a  fright 
ful  catbird,  who  made  up  faces  at  her  and 
called  her  names,  and  from  whose  harsh  voice 
she  fled  home  squeaking  with  fear. 

Every  morning  they  enjoy  a  dainty  bath  in  a 
shallow  sea-shell.  It  is  no  noisy  splash,  such 
as  big,  clumsy  canaries  or  chipping-birds  make ; 
but  floating  softly  an  instant  over  the  water, 
half  supported  by  its  surface  and  half  in  the 
air,  they  drop  their  little  folded  feet  delicately 
in  till  they  touch  the  pearly  bottom  ;  then  for 
a  second  the  wing-tips  and  the  tail  just  graze 
the  water,  and  they  are  off  again  to  the  rim  of 
the  shell,  perhaps  to  repeat  the  performance 
after  a  moment's  fluttering,  and  dressing  of 
their  elfin  plumage. 

Their  most  comical  aspect  is  at  night  when 
asleep.  As  soon  as  it  begins  to  grow  dusk, 
they  perch  close  together  on  an  ivory  knitting 
needle  in  an  upper  corner  of  the  cage,  which  is 


20  Nature 

their  favorite  bedchamber,  and  sleep  snuggled 
up  to  each  other  as  tight  as  two  kittens.  On 
one  occasion  only  they  had  a  quarrel  (tantane 
ircz  in  animis  ccelestibus  ?) ;  and  that  night  they 
went  to  sleep  as  far  apart  as  they  could  pos 
sibly  get,  at  the  two  ends  of  their  perch.  Of 
course  it  is  out  of  the  question  for  them  to  get 
their  heads  under  their  absurd  little  wings,  so 
they  content  themselves  with  ruffling  up  their 
feathers  till  each  bird  is  but  a  little  fluffy  ball, 
the  size  of  a  walnut,  closing  up  their  eyes  as 
tight  as  possible,  and  slanting  their  rigid, 
needle-like  bills  upward  at  a  steep  angle. 
There  they  sit  bunched  up  together  till  broad 
daylight.  The  lighting  of  the  gas  does  not 
awaken  them,  but  we  can  see  sometimes  that 
they  are  having  dreams.  Their  small  heads 
quiver  slightly,  and  their  bills  vibrate,  and  my 
wife  avers  that  the  motions  of  Cobweb's  bill 
indicate  that  she  is  dreaming  of  nestlings  and 
of  giving  them  food  ;  but  for  this  I  will  not 
vouch. 

Peasblossom  is  by  far  the  saucier  of  the  two. 
If  one  holds  out  a  finger  to  him  when  he  is 
humming  about  the  room,  he  will  dart  down 
and  perch  on  it,  swinging  his  head  rhythmically 
from  side  to  side,  and  seeming  to  inspect  one 
curiously,  as  if  with  dim  reminiscences  of  Bot 
tom  the  weaver,  and  wonder  where  the  "  fair 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  21 

large  ears  "  and  "  amiable  cheeks  "  are  gone. 
Sometimes  he  will  feel,  or  feign,  sudden  mis 
givings  of  you,  and  will  ruffle  his  crest  and 
flash  his  black  eyes,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  I  've 
a  mind  to  tear  you  limb  from  limb,  you  big, 
unfeathered  monster  !  " 

For  the  most  part  the  little  creatures  have 
very  happy  lives.  They  are  safe  from  shrikes 
and  cats  and  boys  ;  nor  do  they  suffer,  so  far 
as  one  can  see,  from  any  of  those  vague  ances 
tral  terrors  that  human  beings  know  as  super 
stitions  and  nightmare  fears.  They  want  but 
little  here  below  —  namely,  their  small  glass 
cup  occasionally  replenished  with  sufficiently 
liquid  and  pellucid  sugar-water  ;  and  from 
above  they  ask  only  sunshine.  If,  besides, 
they  have  a  taste  of  midget  or  infant  spider, 
that  is  clear  gain,  like  candy  to  the  schoolboy. 
Yet  they  have  not  been  wholly  without  mis 
haps.  Once  they  were  left  out  too  long  in  a 
suddenly  falling  temperature,  and  when  I  went 
for  them,  Cobweb  lay  apparently  lifeless  on  the 
floor  in  a  corner  of  the  cage.  I  laid  her  softly 
on  the  palm  of  my  hand,  and  she  showed  no 
signs  of  life  except  a  scarcely  perceptible 
breathing.  But  after  five  minutes  of  indoor 
sunshine,  combined  with  the  heat  (and  who 
knows  if  some  more  subtile  stimulus,  imparted 
from  the  human  vitality)  of  my  hand,  her  breath 


22  Nature 

came  more  quickly,  her  eyes  opened,  and  she 
sipped  a  drop  of  syrup,  and  was  immediately  as 
wide  awake  as  ever.  * 

How  they  are  to  be  kept  warm  and  (what  is 
more)  sun-bathed  in  the  long,  dark  winter  of 
our  euphemistically  termed  "  temperate  "  zone, 
is  a  question  of  much  interest  in  our  household. 
My  wife  suggests  a  red  flannel  jacket  for  each 
bird.  Something  in  the  way  of  a  pocket  fur 
nace,  with  a  small  electric  light  for  daytimes, 
perhaps  could  be  devised.  In  any  kind  of 
fairness  we  ought  to  migrate  with  them  to 
Mexico.  Very  likely  we  ourselves  should  find 
such  an  annual  flitting  beneficial.  Indeed,  has 
not  man  made  a  mistake  in  supposing  himself 
to  be  by  nature  a  hibernating,  instead  of  a 
migratory  creature  ?  Will  not  the  coming  man 
discover  that,  at  any  given  season  of  the  year, 
it  is  the  best  place  for  him  where  it  is  the  best 
place  for  the  hummingbird  ? 

If  we  fail  to  keep  them  in  our  coming  dark 
and  cold  weather,  and  they  peak  and  pine  and 
die,  the  old  question  will  recur  with  a  remorse 
ful  sting  to  it,  —  whether  it  is  not  always  and 
intrinsically  cruel  to  cage  a  wild  bird.  There 
are  obviously  two  sides  to  it.  One  may  con 
tend,  with  at  least  some  plausibility,  that  to 
cage  a  wild  bird  is  only  to  introduce  it  to  a 
higher  plane  of  existence.  Is  not  all  civiliza- 


Our  Tame  Hummingbirds  23 

tion  a  kind  of  caging  process  ?  We  take  the 
sans  culotte  and  happy  savage,  button  him  into 
those  "  fetters  of  a  falser  life  "  —  clothes,  crib 
and  confine  his  wayward  freedom  with  rules  of 
etiquette,  rules  of  politeness,  rules  of  morality, 
—  artificial  restrictions  of  all  sorts.  Whereas 
he  was  savage,  now  we  call  him  civilized  ;  but 
whereas  he  was  free,  is  he  not  now  caged  ?  In 
the  case  of  man,  to  speak  honestly,  we  know 
very  well  that  in  reality  we  have  enlarged  his 
true  liberty  by  this  apparently  restrictive  pro 
cess.  We  have  really  freed  him  from  a  thou 
sand  dangers,  and  slaveries  to  brute  nature 
that  belong  to  all  barbarous  existence,  and 
given  him  as  many  new  powers  and  possibili 
ties.  "  And  yet  "  —  the  mind  still  doubts  ; 
and  in  the  summer  vacations,  when  we  dash 
away  from  civilized  employments  to  the  savage 
delights  of  slaying  trout  and  deer  and  mos 
quitoes,  the  doubt  rises  to  a  kind  of  wild  asser 
tion  that  freedom,  after  all,  is  the  best  thing, 
even  if  we  have  to  go  to  the  woods  to  find  it. 

And  so,  even  more  surely,  of  the  birds  — 
those  very  incarnations  of  blithe,  sweet  liberty. 
Capture  them,  wise  reader,  only  with  the  im 
agination.  Enjoy  my  hummingbird,  with  me, 
as  I  sit  here  —  one  representative  of  a  certain 
overgrown,  conceited,  bungling,  wingless  spe 
cies  of  the  animal  kingdom  —  trying  to  under- 


24  Nature 

stand  better  my  "  world  not  realized  "  for  the 
presence  of  these  other  two  little  vertebrates 
who  sit  with  me  ;  both  put  together  not  so  big 
as  my  thumb ;  one  of  them  pluming  his  emer 
ald  breast  as  he  surmounts  a  crease  of  my 
coat-sleeve,  the  other  perched  on  my  ink-stand, 
trying  to  look  wise,  yet  too  obviously  thinking 
only  of  "  victuals  and  drink."  But  if  you  are 
indeed  what  the  old-fashioned  writers  always 
appealed  to  —  my  "  gentle  "  reader  —  do  not 
follow  my  rash  example.  Let  the  birds  go 
free.  Do  with  them  as  Goethe  said  we  do 
with  the  stars —  "  admire  them,  love  them,  but 
not  desire  them  for  our  own." 

For  I  must  needs,  to  be  wholly  truthful,  add 
here  a  tragic  postscript.  The  dark  fall  days 
came ;  there  was  a  whole  week  without  a 
gleam  of  good  sunshine  ;  and  in  spite  of  all 
our  contrivances  and  our  cares,  the  two  bright 
and  beautiful  little  lives  slipped  out  of  their 
cage  and  fled  away. 


A   RHAPSODY   OF   CLOUDS 

"  O  ETHER  divine  !  "  cried  Prometheus  ;  but 
he  was  chained  supine  on  the  rock,  and  forced 
to  see  the  sky.  We  who  walk  erect  at  will  are 
apt  to  confine  our  attention  to  the  things  of 
earth.  There  are  two  landscapes,  two  firma 
ments,  always  visible  to  us  ;  but  it  is  as  if,  by 
some  secret  compact,  the  upper  and  finer  one 
were  reserved  apart  for  birds  and  poets,  or  for 
the  forlorn  face  that  here  and  there  turns  up 
ward  in  search  of  some  better  justice  or  fairer 
hope  than  has  been  found  on  earth.  Now  and 
then  we  find  a  person  who  has  the  habit  of 
looking  at  the  night  skies,  and  mayhap  knows 
the  constellations,  so  that  the  stars  are  not 
accidental  sparks  to  him  any  longer,  but  old 
friends,  any  one  of  whose  faces  would  be  missed 
if  it  were  withdrawn.  But  who  looks  upward 
by  day  and  sees  the  clouds  ? 

There  are  ways  of  enticing  people,  or  re 
minding  ourselves,  to  appreciate  this  neglected 
side  (the  upper  side)  of  landscape.  It  is  no 
sin  to  improve  upon  Nature,  or  at  least  upon 
our  physical  endowments  for  apprehending  her 


26  Nature 

beauty.  The  camera  obscura  is  one  such  con 
trivance.  Fix  a  suitable  lens  in  the  front  of 
any  old  box,  with  a  dark  curtain  under  which 
to  thrust  the  head,  and  the  "divine  ether," 
with  its  cloud-cuckoo-town  of  shifting  scenery, 
will  stoop  to  our  infirmity,  and  mimic  itself  in 
little  —  but  with  all  its  glorious  light  and  color 
—  below  our  face.  The  Claude  Lorraine  glass 
is  another  simple  instrument  of  magical  effect. 
The  great  landscape  that  seemed  too  vast  to 
look  at,  in  its  sweep  of  valley  and  woods  and 
hills  and  sky,  comes  into  the  compass  of  the 
hand,  with  the  lights  and  shades  and  hues  all 
there,  but  mellowed  and  softened  ;  it  is  beau 
tiful  as  ever,  but  it  all  floats  on  the  facet  of  a 
crystal  ;  the  big  giant  has  eaten  of  Alice's  cake 
in  Wonderland,  and  becomes  a  heavenly  child  ; 
the  finite  eye  has  captured  the  infinite  distance 
by  a  pretty  trick.  The  poet  Gray,  it  is  said, 
used  always  to  carry  a  common  lens  in  his 
pocket  when  he  "  walked  abroad,"  in  whose 
surface  to  see  the  landscape  imaged  ;  thus,  we 
may  suppose,  to  bring  it  nearer  the  compass  of 
an  elegy  or  an  ode. 

But  this  present  screed  was  entered  upon  in 
order  to  recommend  to  all  lovers  of  nature  the 
use  of  still  another  bit  of  artifice  for  aiding  the 
natural  eye  to  see  the  supernatural  beauties  and 
wonders  of  sky-and-cloud  scenery.  I  mean  the 


A  Rhapsody  of  Clouds  27 

ordinary  smoked  glasses  of  the  optician's  shop. 
They  should  not  be  colored  glasses  at  all,  but 
just  sufficiently  clouded  with  a  colorless  smoke- 
tint  to  tone  down  the  intensity  of  the  brightest 
light.  The  test  should  be  that  one  can  gaze 
fixedly  at  a  bright,  sunlit  white  cloud  floating 
in  noonday  blue,  without  trying  the  eye.  I 
do  not  believe  (though  I  am  no  optician)  that 
the  ordinary  habitual  use  of  such  glasses  is  to 
be  recommended,  except  where  the  eye  impera 
tively  demands  protection.  They  are  rather 
for  special  emergencies,  such  as  a  dusty  wind 
storm  in  the  city,  to  keep  the  awning-posts  and 
paving-blocks  out  of  one's  eyes ;  or  on  the 
snow  slopes  of  a  mountain,  to  blunt  the  intol 
erable  glare  •  or  in  a  railroad  car,  to  fend  off 
cinders  blundering  in  through  an  open  window ; 
and  especially  for  this  aesthetical  use  of  which 
I  speak.  One  feels,  on  using  them  for  the  first 
time,  that  he  never  before  has  properly  seen  a 
cloud,  for  the  reason  that  never  before  has  he 
been  able  to  look  steadily  right  into  the  face 
and  eyes  of  a  brilliant  noonday  sky. 

In  this  way,  with  the  shield  of  the  soft-toned 
glasses  before  the  eyes,  one  no  longer  gives  a 
general  look  at  the  heavens  now  and  then,  with 
a  hasty  glance,  as  to  know  whether  it  is  neces 
sary  to  take  an  umbrella,  but  he  seats  himself 
before  it,  as  before  the  surf,  or  before  a  play 


28  Nature 

at  the  theatre,  to  watch  deliberately  what  goes 
on.  Nor  does  he  any  longer  look  at  an  indi 
vidual  cloud  that  is  pointed  out  for  some 
grotesque  shape  or  some  remarkable  color  ;  but 
he  sees  the  whole  field,  the  complex  groupings 
of  forms  and  tints,  the  marchings  and  counter- 
marchings  of  the  sky  battalions.  One  might 
as  well  suppose  he  knew  the  wonders  of  forest 
scenery  when  he  had  only  looked  at  single 
trees,  as  to  imagine  he  had  seen  the  clouds 
when  he  had  only  glanced  hastily  at-  an  occa 
sional  cloud.  There  are  wonderful  mountains 
among  them,  with  sheer  precipices,  and  shad 
owy  caves,  and  Alpine  crags ;  dark  towers, 
such  as  Childe  Roland  blew  his  blast  before ; 
minarets  and  domes,  with  mysterious  ara 
besque  of  Oriental  tracery  ;  serene  ocean  shores 
where  the  gray  sand  glimmers  through  shoal 
ing  blue,  and  the  round-breasted  galleons  sail 
smoothly  over. 

It  is  great  to  sit  in  a  lawn-chair,  of  a  summer 
Sunday  afternoon,  and  gaze  undazzled  into  the 
upper  sky.  A  light  breeze  taps  the  pear-tree 
leaves  softly,  as  a  mother  might  pat  together 
the  palms  of  her  child.  The  organ  snores 
sleepily  in  the  distant  church  :  even  the  choir 
sounds  musical,  heard  faintly  and  occasionally, 
as  if  it  were  a  far-off  memory  of  better  music. 
The  blue  of  the  zenith  is  intense  with  light  that 


A  Rhapsody  of  Clouds  29 

would  be  unbearable  to  the  unshielded  eye,  and 
as  the  Cleopatra's  barges  of  slow  clouds  sail 
softly  across,  with  their  round,  bellying  sails 
of  snow  and  pearl,  it  only  makes  the  azure 
more  "  deeply  and  darkly  "  blue.  By  and  by 
the  color,  or  the  very  depth  and  boundlessness 
of  it,  seems  to  inundate  one's  brain,  as  the 
blue,  deep  sea-tide  lifts  through  a  coral  reef, 
and  all  the  little  ocean-creatures  stretch  out 
their  delicate  hands  and  feed  confidingly  in  the 
lucid  clearness.  So  do  delicate  brain-fancies 
float  and  feed  tranquilly  in  this  inflooding  tide 
of  the  blue  heavens. 

Nor  is  all  this  without  its  possibility  of  solid 
scientific  usefulness.  O  dear  specialist,  that 
inclinest  to  flout  such  skyey  contemplations  ! 
Why  do  those  clouds  float  there  so  buoyantly ; 
and  what  makes  the  cirrus  take  on  those  feath 
ery  forms  ?  Do  not  tell  me  it  is  the  wind,  un 
less  I  am  to  believe  there  be  winds  celestial, 
very  different  from  winds  terrestrial.  Those 
filmy  tufts,  those  lightest  dabs,  drawn  out  in 
wavy  brush-lines,  as  if  with  a  pencil  dipped  in 
sublimated  wool,  or  in  the  quintessence  of  dis 
solved  cobweb,  —  is  it  by  electricity  or  mag 
netism  ?  Or  have  some  of  those  puffy-cheeked 
cherubs,  seen  so  commonly  tilting  about  the 
mediaeval  skies  by  the  old  masters,  but  not  any 
more  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  —  have  some  of 


30  Nature 

these  bodiless  baby-heads  blown  them  at  one 
another,  for  a  game  ? 

Even  thou,  O  dear  Gradgrindling,  canst  find 
thine  account  in  this  sky-gazing  !  It  is  even 
of  "  use,"  "  practically."  For  there  is  no  better 
barometer,  or  prophet  of  the  weather,  than 
such  a  film  of  cloud  as  one  sees  yonder.  If  it 
grows  and  grows,  as  we  watch  it  (not  that  we 
can  see  it  grow,  —  cloud  prophets  are  too  sub 
tle  for  that ;  but  if  we  see  from  moment  to  mo 
ment  that  it  has  grown),  then  we  may  know  it 
will  pretty  surely  rain.  While  if  it  fade  and 
fade,  and  suddenly  we  find  ourselves  only  re 
membering  what  was,  —  for  it  is  not  any  more, 
—  then  we  may  pretty  safely  leave  the  unbrella 
at  home. 

Some  days  the  outlines  of  the  clouds  are  all 
making  faces  at  each  other  :  merry  faces,  if  one 
feels  in  that  mood,  and  therefore  unconsciously 
compels  the  eye  to  that  selection  of  forms  ; 
solemn  faces,  if  that  be  the  masterful  feeling. 
Why  should  the  profiles  generally  be  looking 
from  right  to  left?  Or  is  that  only  an  idio 
syncrasy  of  my  own  ?  With  me  it  is  so  on 
wall-paper,  it  is  so  in  the  cloud-tapestry  of  the 
sky;  my  mind,  if  for  the  moment  idle,  perpet 
ually  sees  faces,  nearly  always  profiles,  and 
nearly  always  looking  to  the  left.  Is  it  because 
one  sketches  a  profile  on  paper  with  the  right 


A  Rhapsody  of  Clouds  31 

hand,  and  so  with  the  projecting  points  toward 
the  left,  away  from  the  hand,  which  otherwise 
would  hide  them  ?  Some  poet  may  say,  if  he 
chooses  to,  that  it  is  with  all  the  faces  and 
aspects  of  this  universe  as  with  those  of  the 
clouds,  —  that  all  look  smiling  and  benevolent 
to  us,  or  grim  and  forbidding,  according  to 
our  own  voluntary  state  of  heart;  but  I  will 
not  say  it,  for  I  am  not  perfectly  sure  it  is  true. 
The  poet  will  probably  say  it  if  he  only  hopes 
it  is  true. 

When  presently  we  are  able  to  sail  the  air 
in  the  coming  balloon,  it  will  be  pleasant  to 
make  afternoon  excursions  among  the  summer 
clouds.  We  shall  rendezvous  here  and  there  in 
their  recesses.  "  Come  !  "  one  will  say  to  his 
friend  ;  "  let  us  talk  it  over  on  the  rosy  south 
west  corner  of  that  mother-of-pearl  mountain 
in  the  sky."  Or  we  shall  bid  John  unpack  the 
luncheon  basket  in  the  shade  of  yonder  floating 
shelf  of  foamy  ivory ;  or  we  shall  agree  to  meet, 
at  half  past  two,  just  under  the  billowy  chin 
of  what  seems  an  aerial  Martha  Washington. 

How  can  so  soft  and  fluffy  a  texture,  an  airy 
pile  of  bird's  breasts  and  gossamer,  hold  so 
firm  an  outline  against  the  blue,  and  catch  such 
a  splendor  of  intense  light  ?  As  it  comes  float 
ing  and  toppling  across  the  sky,  one  would  like 
to  shoot  a  feather-bed  up  through  it,  and  let 


32  Nature 

the  azure  through  the  soft  hole.  Or  one  would 
like  to  see  an  angel  out  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  or, 
better,  out  of  Dante's  "  Paradiso,"  push  the 
yielding  curtains  of  it  aside,  and  for  an  awed 
and  heart-beating  moment  look  earnestly,  half 
smiling,  down  upon  the  earth. 

It  is  a  dead  enough  world,  if  people  merely 
glance  at  it  with  the  rambling,  unsteady  eye  of 
a  preoccupied  mind.  Water,  for  example,  — 
what  is  it  but  drinkable  fluid,  or  oxygen  and 
hydrogen,  to  the  average  mortal  ?  The  "  prim 
rose  by  the  river's  brim  "  and  the  river  by  its 
own  brim  are  equally  stale,  flat,  and  unprofit 
able.  But  let  a  man  look  close,  —  say,  at  the 
tense  muscle  of  the  running  stream,  or  the 
bubble-shadows  on  the  sands  in  the  eddy,  each 
with  a  yellow  star  in  its  centre ;  then  the  water 
is  a  living  wonder.  And  these  clouds  —  an 
every-day  affair,  no  doubt,  a  "  useful  trouble," 
to  most  apprehensions  \  but  if  we  look  close  we 
cannot  but  take  in  the  unimagined  beauty  of 
them.  Changeful  as  the  sea,  over  which  they 
have  sailed  so  many  leagues  that  they  have 
taken  on  a  certain  mimicry  of  the  intricate 
forms  of  ocean-waves,  they  are  without  the 
quick,  criss-cross  fret  and  restlessness  of  the 
sea  ;  for  the  clouds  are  nearly  always  calm  : 
over  its  "  restlessness,"  their  "  rest."  Yet  they 
are  never  still  ;  the  gossamer  tracerv,  if  vou 


A  Rhapsody  of  Clouds  33 

watch  it,  is  all  alive,  as  if  the  films  and  veins 
of  agate  should  come  to  life,  and  begin  to 
weave  and  unweave  their  interchanging  fibres. 

There  is  another  odd  and  interesting  effect 
of  the  dark  glasses.  When  one  takes  them  off, 
after  a  prolonged  gaze  through  them,  the  whole 
world  gains  suddenly  a  new  splendor.  It  is 
like  a  sforzando  chord  in  a  symphony  of 
Rubinstein's.  Or  it  is  like  a  sudden  bracing 
up  of  the  spirit  when  one  concludes  to  fling  off 
a  dusky  mood,  and  enters  the  sunshine  of  some 
hearty  action. 

It  is  not  often  that  we  can  watch,  near  by, 
the  rapid  formation  of  cloud ;  but  it  once  hap 
pened  to  me,  in  climbing  among  the  "  Ameri 
can  Alps,"  —  the  Sierra  Nevada,  —  to  find  my 
self  on  a  crag  precisely  underneath  the  line  of 
low  cloud  formation.  Leaning  back  to  rest 
against  the  rock,  and  looking  upward,  I  saw 
the  mountain  drapery  weaving  itself  —  out  of 
nothing,  as  it  appeared :  blue  air  on  one  side 
of  the  line  ;  dark  slaty  films  (nearest  it),  then 
shreds,  then  masses  of  flying  cloud,  on  the 
other.  Clear  across  the  sky  extended  the  dis 
tinct  edge  of  this  swift  and  incessant  weaving. 
It  was  like  nothing  but  a  great  shadowy  banner 
streaming  out  in  the  gale  from  an  invisible 
cord  strained  tight  across  the  sky.  It  was  the 
work  of  the  Earth  Spirit  in  Faust :  — 


34  Nature 

"  At  the  roaring  loom  of  Time  I  ply, 
And  weave  for  God  the  garment  thou  seest  Him  by." 

Sometimes,  with  the  eyes  shielded  by  their 
smoke-tint  armor  against  the  blinding  splendor 
of  the  summer  blue  contrasting  with  its  dark 
cloud  scenery,  we  may  attend  a  thunder-storm 
symphony  in  the  air.  Solemnly  the  curtain 
begins  to  rise  ;  the  wind  carries  it,  for  there  is 
a  wild  wind  far  up  in  the  heavens,  though  as 
yet  all  is  still  below.  There  is  a  deep  hush 
upon  us  all,  —  the  trees,  and  birds,  and  the 
rest  of  us  in  the  audience,  for  we  are  full  of 
expectancy.  It  grows  insensibly  darker  and 
darker  in  "  the  hall  of  the  firmament."  There 
are  rolls  of  distant  thunder,  —  it  is  the  orches 
tra,  and  the  instruments  are  being  tuned  ;  you 
hear  the  contra-basses  trying  a  chromatic  pas 
sage  in  hesitating  touches.  There  is  some 
trilogy  of  Wagner's  toward  ;  for  the  stage  is 
preparing,  and  the  scenes  are  slowly  shifting, 
—  lofty  walls  of  cloud  that  move  silently  to 
one  side  and  the  other ;  but  no  celestial  actors 
emerge,  and  the  azure  floor  remains  empty. 
Or  possibly  they  are  there,  but  invisible  ;  as 
most  of  the  orchestral  harmonies  are  still 
inaudible, 

"  Whilst  this  muddy  vesture  of  decay 
Doth  grossly  close  us  in,"  — 

all  but  those  louder  and  bolder  double-basses. 


A  Rhapsody  of  Clouds  3  5 

and  the  rolling  and  rattling  crescendo  of  the 
drums.  By  and  by  a  flash  of  keen  lightning 
blazes  out,  like  the  crash  of  brazen  cymbals 
threaded  with  the  shrilling  piccolo. 

At  such  times  you  may  occasionally  catch 
a  strange  effect.  You  are  looking  through  a 
deep  cleft  in  the  black  clouds,  cut  down  across 
the  sky,  at  the  brilliant  blue  between.  Sud 
denly  a  lightning  flash  completely  reverses,  for 
just  an  instant,  the  light  and  shade  ;  the 
gloomy  cloud-walls  gleam  out  intensely  lumi 
nous,  while  the  towering  shaft  of  intervening 
sky  is  dark  by  contrast,  and  so  starts  forward 
tangibly  from  the  distance,  like  a  momentary 
incarnation  of  some  black  genie  of  the  Arabian 
Nights. 

On  some  more  tranquil  August  afternoon, 
when  the  sky-dome  is  lifted  to  its  serenest 
height,  and  only  pearly  cirrus,  so  far  up  as 
almost  to  be  motionless,  bars  it  from  being 
infinite,  we  may  recline  in  our  couch-chair  and 
gaze  upward  so  long  and  steadily  that  we 
drowse  a  little.  Or,  if  still  awake,  we  seem  to 
lose  ourselves  in  space.  It  is  as  if  there  were 
a  second  sort  of  sleep  possible  to  us  ;  not  the 
withdrawal  of  the  consciousness  back  into  the 
inner  brain,  as  in  night  slumber,  but  the  expan 
sion  or  floating  out  of  the  consciousness  into 
the  deeps  of  outer  existence.  Is  it  any  wonder 


36  Nature 

if  sometimes,  then,  the  methodical  reason  gives 
way  to  flitting  fancies,  and,  while  the  clouds 
flow  slowly  and  smoothly  across  the  upper 
world,  our  reveries  run  into  rhythm,  and  such 
things  get  themselves  written  as  this  with  which 
we  close? 

CLOUD  TRACERY 

What  wind  from  what  celestial  wood  hath  sown 
Such  delicate  seed  as  springs  in  air,  and  turns 
The  blue  heaven-garden  to  a  bed  of  ferns 
In  feathery  cloud  ?     They  are  not  tossed,  or  blown 

To  such  wild  shapes,  but  motionless  they  ride, 
Like  a  celestial  frost-work  on  the  pane 
Of  our  sky-window,  where  the  breath  has  lain 
Of  the  pure  cold  upon  the  thither  side. 

They  are  but  pencil  touches,  soft  and  light, 
Traced  faintly  under  some  magnetic  spell 
By  an  entranced  spirit,  that  would  write 

Hints  of  heaven-language  ere  the  soul's  release,-* 

Dim  outlines  of  the  syllables  that  tell 

Of  words  like  faith,  and  confidence,  and  peace. 


CHEERFULNESS   OF   BIRDS 

WE  are,  at  our  house,  I  confess,  a  rather 
sombre  family.  There  are  no  young  children 
among  us.  The  elderly  people  are  silent  by 
temperament,  and  grow  more  silent  as  age 
comes  on.  There  is  never  any  ill-temper  in 
the  house,  —  never  any  bickering  or  nagging, 
no  spiteful  epigrams  or  sidelong  sarcasms. 
We  seem  really  to  like  each  other,  although 
we  are  all  "  blood-relations."  We  get  on, 
therefore,  from  year  to  year.  No  doubt  we 
seem  to  others  a  happy  family,  and  perhaps 
we  are  ;  but  we  are  never  a  merry  family.  The 
house  is  so  built  that  the  rooms  where  the  sun 
shines  liberally  are  not  the  rooms  most  used  ; 
not  the  rooms,  for  example,  that  we  are  accus 
tomed  to  use  together.  The  heating  apparatus 
is  that  most  successful  and  most  lugubrious 
one,  —  steam.  The  radiators  are  large  black 
surfaces,  with  just  enough  of  gilt  at  edge  and 
corner  to  make  the  black  hopelessly  conspicu 
ous,  flattening  themselves  against  the  wall  as  if 
they  were  aware  of  their  ugliness.  No  blazing 
and  sparkling  and  cheerily  snapping  open  fire 


38  Nature 

illuminates  any  of  the  "  living  "  rooms.  (The 
kitchen  is  the  most  cheerful  place  in  the  house, 
—  as  I  have  occasionally  seen  it,  empty  and 
deserted,  after  the  cook  and  the  maid  had 
retired  at  night,  — with  the  rich  hot  coals  still 
sending  out  their  rays  merrily  through  chink 
and  crevice  of  the  range,  for  the  sole  benefit  of 
the  house-cat,  stretched  out  with  full  abandon 
on  the  toasting-hot  hearth.)  Our  deplorable 
habit,  at  meals,  is  to  attend  to  the  business  in 
hand  with  grave  decorum,  —  very  decently  and 
in  order,  no  doubt,  but  for  the  most  part 
silently.  I  have  known  some  one  of  us,  ap 
parently  for  the  moment  sensible  of  something 
oppressive  in  this  gravity,  to  venture  on  a 
frivolous  remark,  and  to  have  it  received  in 
silence,  as  a  thing  not  congruous  with  the  roast 
meat,  especially  during  the  solemn  action 
of  its  being  carved  and  distributed.  We  come 
down  to  breakfast  not  at  all  out  of  humor 
(we  are  not  invalids),  but  disposed  to  a  very 
calm  and  peaceful  demeanor.  We  wish  each 
other  good-morning  with  a  genuine  affection, 
but  the  remark,  having  been  responded  to,  is 
not  followed  up.  An  observation  concerning 
the  weather  does  not  usually  lead  anywhere. 
When  we  have  a  more  lively  visitor,  we  easily 
fall  in  with  his  mood,  and  are  capable  of  a 
good  deal  of  sprightliness  on  such  an  occasion, 


Cheerfulness  of  Birds  39 

—  not  in  the  least  labored  or  affected,  either ; 
but  by  ourselves  we  are  habitually  silent,  and 
occupied  with  our  own  sedate  reflections. 

All  this  makes  —  I  cannot  but  see  it  and 
feel  it,  much  as  I  myself  share  in  the  responsi 
bility  —  a  sombre  house. 

But  there  is  one  bright  spot,  and  that  fur 
nishes  the  text  of  my  utterances  now  upon  the 
subject.  It  is  the  tame  canary,  "Johnny-quil." 
Not  only  is  he  himself  always  cheerful  (and 
who  ever  saw  a  well  canary  depressed  ?),  but 
he  is  the  cause  of  cheerfulness  in  others.  In 
the  midst  of  one  of  our  long  silences  we  hear 
his  little  pipe  ringing  out  from  his  sunny  eyrie 
in  the  porch  or  the  sitting-room,  and  some 
one  remarks,  "  Just  hear  Johnny-quil !  "  Our 
barometers  all  go  up  ten  degrees.  Besides, 
everybody  chirrups  to  him.  It  is  not  only, 
therefore,  what  he  says  to  us,  but  what  we  say 
to  him,  that  makes  him  the  enlivener  of  the 
family.  You  can't  exactly  chirrup  to  a  grown 
up  human  being,  —  especially  if  he  is  carving 
a  fowl,  or  reading  a  religious  newspaper.  But 
it  is  always  possible,  and  apparently  always  in 
evitable,  to  say  something  chipper  and  chirpy 
to  the  bird,  as  we  pass  his  cage.  I  have  no 
ticed  this  odd  thing :  that  when  Rhodora  or 
Penelope  or  Cassandra  stops  at  the  cage,  and 
says  some  little  nonsensical  thing  to  the  small 


40  Nature 

yellow  songster,  or  half  whistles  to  him  in  pass 
ing,  not  only  does  he  pipe  up,  but  pretty  soon 
you  hear  her  own  voice,  from  a  distant  room, 
humming  a  bit  of  some  gay  waltz  or  madrigal. 
The  unconscious  lifting  of  one's  own  more 
sober  mood  to  the  higher  level  of  the  bird's 
irrepressible  good  spirits  lasts  on  a  little  be 
yond  the  instant.  I  recommend  him  and  his 
merry  kind  to  other  silent  houses.  He  is  worth 
his  weight  in  sunshine. 


THE  RED  LEAVES  ON  THE  SNOW 

THE  years  monotonous  ?  The  same  old  sea 
sons,  and  weathers,  and  aspects  of  nature? 
Never  anything  new  to  admire  or  wonder  at  ? 
The  monotony  is  in  our  eyesight,  which  goes 
on  seeing  nothing  but  the  common  and  invari 
able  things ;  simply  because,  from  long  famil 
iarity,  these  are  the  easy  things  to  see.  But 
these  are  only  the  frame  of  the  picture ;  the 
picture  itself  is  never  twice  alike. 

Suppose,  to  test  it,  we  should  open  a  ledger 
account  with  Nature.  It  should  be  headed, 
The  Face  of  Nature  in  Account  with  an  Ex 
acting  Mind.  On  the  left-hand  page  should  be 
entered  the  Dr.  side  of  the  account ;  namely, 
to  all  the  phenomena  of  the  year  that  we  could 
fairly  stigmatize  as  the  "same  everlasting  old 
thing."  On  the  right-hand  page  should  go  the 
Cr. ;  namely,  by  all  the  aspects  of  land  or  sea 
or  sky  that  in  any  candor  we  must  confess 
never  before  to  have  been  noticed  by  us. 

For  example,  "  February  3d.  Dr.  To  a  pale 
sunrise,  going  into  a  low-spirited  forenoon  of 
leaden  cloud.  Have  seen  this  hundreds  of 


42  Nature 

times  before."  Or,  "August  2oth.  Dr.  To 
a  hot  afternoon.  Sleepy.  Palm -leaf  fans. 
Shower  at  five  o'clock.  Bumbles  and  boom- 
bles  of  approaching  thunder.  Scalding  water. 
One  sharp  flash  and  crack.  Three  rolling 
peals,  going  r,  r,  r,  bang;  r,  r,  r,  boong ;  br,  r, 
bong,  BANG,  br,  r,  m,  m,  m.  Same  old  thunder- 
shower." 

Of  the  Cr.  side  of  the  account,  the  items 
which  led  me  to  begin  this  paper,  and  which 
I  am  about  to  mention,  will  furnish  a  good 
example. 

It  is  the  yth  of  November.  The  first  snow 
came  in  the  night,  and  this  morning  we  had 
that  annual  experience  of  drawing  the  curtain, 
and  looking  out  a  little  shiveringly,  and  say 
ing,  "  A  white  world  !  Winter  has  come,  sure 
enough."  Ten  inches  of  snow;  and,  all  day, 
more  powdered  down  in  successive  puffs  and 
squalls.  One  minute,  all  blue  sky,  and  the  sun 
flashing  on  everything ;  the  next,  you  see  the 
northwest  obscured,  and  the  dun  cloud  rapidly 
covering  the  whole  heavens,  its  upper  edge 
fringed  with  light  snow-scud  brushed  out  be 
fore  it  in  wisps  and  flying  locks.  Suddenly 
the  air  is  thick  with  the  falling  and  whirling 
flakes.  It  is  like  the  glass  toy  box  we  had 
when  children,  which  we  turned  upside  down, 
and  scattered  a  thick  white  shower  on  the 


Tbe  Red  Leaves  on  tbe  Snow          43 

wooden  trees  and  the  whittled  chalet  and  herds 
men. 

These  gusty  squalls  have  brought  down  the 
last  "flying  gold  "  of  the  autumn  trees.  Yester 
day  the  maples  and  oaks  and  the  great  round- 
topped  linden  on  the  lawn  were  still  full  of 
their  wealth  of  color.  There  it  lies  now  on 
the  snow,  —  smouldering  reds  and  yellows, 
burning  with  dusky  blushes  on  (not  in,  as  ordi 
narily)  the  level  floor  of  the  white  cold.  This 
is  what  I  meant  I  had  not  seen  before  :  the 
autumn  lying  in  this  literal  fashion  on  the  win 
ter's  breast.  Commonly  the  carpet  of  the 
fallen  leaves  is  all  down  before  the  cold  white 
feet  of  the  snowstorms  come  to  dance  upon  it. 
(If  these  metaphors  seem  to  tread  on  each 
other's  heels  a  little,  a  squall  or  two  may  be 
supposed  to  have  intervened.) 

The  prettiest  thing,  however,  in  this  particu 
lar  case  of  the  first  snow,  is  the  way  its  soft 
ness,  early  in  the  night,  caused  it  to  stick  fast, 
silvering  the  windward  side  of  every  object. 
Not  only  are  the  firs  deep  loaded,  the  lower 
boughs  weighted  and  banked  till  each  tree  is, 
from  the  ground  up,  a  continuous  tent  of  snow, 
but  the  trunks  and  every  round  limb  and  fork 
ing  twig  of  the  elms  and  oaks  are  puffed  with 
fleckless  white.  It  makes  of  them  a  vivid  kind 
of  crayon  sketch  :  every  bough  has  its  dark 


44  Nature 

shadow  away  from  the  sun,  and  its  white  high 
light  toward  the  wind.  The  gate-posts  are 
capped  high  with  the  rounded  ermine.  In  the 
side  of  one  of  these  snowcaps  I  carefully 
scooped  out  a  little  cave ;  then,  removing  my 
glove,  I  cautiously  (so  as  not  to  dismantle  the 
fluffy  entrance)  thrust  in  my  bare  hand  and 
held  it  there.  Almost  instantly  I  could  feel 
the  warmth  reflected  from  the  translucent  walls. 
For  the  first  time  (another  item  on  the  Cr.  side 
of  our  account-book),  I  not  only  could  under 
stand,  but  sense,  how  the  prairie-hens  and  over 
taken  travelers  can,  like  cunning  children  with 
their  mothers,  escape  the  castigation  of  the 
snow  by  fleeing  to  the  snow's  own  bosom. 

The  little  wren-house  on  the  stub  of  the 
dead  pear-tree  is  piled  thick  to  windward,  and 
fringed  with  icicles  on  the  eaves  to  leeward, 
like  the  abodes  of  all  the  rest  of  us.  Across 
the  river,  on  the  crown  of  the  slope,  stands  a 
straight  high  wall  of  woods.  It  is  a  reversed 
drawing  in  charcoal ;  all  the  tops,  the  soft  mass 
of  bare  boughs  and  twigs,  being  shaded  dark, 
while  the  stems  of  the  tall  hickories  and  oaks 
stand  forth  white  as  marble  columns. 

On  the  smooth  snow  of  the  lawn  stands  a 
slender  upright  wand,  left  solitary  in  the  de 
serted  tennis-court,  where  it  supported  the  net 
in  the  middle.  The  adhering  fleece  has  made 


The  Red  Leaves  on  the  Snow          45 

of  it  only  a  delicate  rapier-blade  of  snow. 
Shining  there  in  the  sun,  scarcely  more  tan 
gible  than  its  faint  blue  shadow,  a  slim  white 
line,  pure,  cold,  still,  —  what  a  beautiful  baton 
for  conducting  some  symphony  of  Mendels 
sohn  ;  or  a  stylus  for  tracing  the  icy  music  of 

's  poetry;  or  a  gnomon  for  some  frosty 

moon-dial,  whereon  to  mark  the  saintly  hours 
of 's  life. 


THE   EARTH-SPIRIT'S   VOICES 

SOMETIMES  it  is  difficult  to  keep  from  be 
lieving  that  the  earth  has  voices,  "  mystic, 
wonderful,"  whose  weird  message  continually 
tries  to  get  itself  delivered  to  our  ear. 

Every  one  has  had  the  experience  of  stand 
ing  in  the  midst  of  the  woods,  some  still  sum 
mer  day,  when  the  leaves  and  sprays  hung 
motionless,  and  the  silence  was  profound. 
Presently  you  are  aware  of  a  stir  in  the  tree- 
tops.  It  is  not  so  much  an  audible  sound,  at 
first,  as  an  invisible  movement,  apprehended 
only  by  the  most  delicate  tentacles  of  the  sense 
of  hearing.  Then  it  rises  to  a  soft  murmur, 
and  dies  away.  Again  you  hear  it,  farther  off 
this  time,  but  approaching.  It  is  the  Voice  of 
the  woods.  But  this  is  not  all.  I  have  fancied 
that  beneath  this  murmurous  surf-sound  there 
lurks  a  still  more  mysterious  undertone ;  as  if 
there  were  other  Voices,  never  daring  to  speak 
with  each  other  except  when  the  wind  is  blow 
ing  to  mask  their  presence.  With  each  other 
—  or  is  it  not  rather  that  they  are  trying  to 
communicate  with  our  human  spirit  ?  As  I 


The  Earth-Spirit's  Voices  47 

hear  them,  I  imagine  troops  of  little  eager 
faces,  pressing  as  near  me  as  they  dare,  or  as 
they  are  permitted,  watching  for  the  swelling 
of  the  wind,  and  hushing  each  other  as  it  falls 
to  silence. 

But  the  message,  if  indeed  there  be  one  that 
the  earth-spirit  is  thus  trying  to  deliver,  will 
hardly  be  conveyed  by  these  delicate  elves  of 
the  wood.  They  are  too  timid,  too  fearful  of 
the  quiet,  and  conditioned  upon  other  sounds 
which  mask  but  confuse  their  burden. 

I  think  that  the  message  will  ultimately  be 
conveyed  by  the  Voices  of  the  river.  Their 
music,  for  one  thing,  is  nearest  that  of  human 
speech.  I  remember  one  night  when  we  were 
camped  by  the  McCloud  River,  deep  in  the 
heart  of  the  redwood  forest  in  northern  Cali 
fornia.  There  was  no  moon.  Far  above  us 
the  great  plumy  tops  of  the  redwoods,  own  kin 
to  the  giant  trees  of  the  Sierras,  rose  like  ca 
thedral  roof  and  towers,  and  hid  the  starlight. 
The  aisles  below  were  empty  and  silent,  and 
mysterious  with  that  soul  of  shadow  that  haunts 
the  solitary  woods  at  night.  The  aisles  were 
silent,  but  not  the  choir.  For,  a  stone's-throw 
to  the  right,  the  Voices  of  the  clear,  deep  river 
were  talking  and  laughing  all  night  long.  They 
were  perfectly  human  tones.  There  would  run 
on  for  a  few  moments  an  even,  continuous 


48  Nature 

babble  ;  then  out  of  it  would  rise  a  mingled 
peal  of  musical  laughter,  like  bells,  or  clear 
pebbles  striking  together,  or  tinkling  of  ice, 
yet  all  the  time  human.  Then  there  would 
run  merry  chucklings  up  and  down  the  river ; 
and  then  a  shout  would  arise,  away  down 
stream,  and  another ;  and  then  all  the  hurry 
ing  Voices  would  talk  loudly  together ;  and 
then  a  moment's  quiet ;  and  then,  again,  inex 
tinguishable  laughter. 

If  I  had  lain  there  alone,  perhaps  I  might 
have  understood  some  fragment  of  this  inar 
ticulate  music,  or  speech.  But  perhaps,  too,  I 
might  have  paid  for  it  by  never  hearing  mortal 
accents  more ;  so  weirdly  this  tumult  of  elfin 
syllables  wrought  upon  me,  even  well  com 
panioned  as  I  was,  there  in  the  dimness  and 
unearthly  solitude  of  the  starlit  forest. 

I  never  heard  these  Voices  of  the  river  again 
till  one  night  they  rose  from  the  orchestra,  in 
the  Rhine  Nymphs'  song.  I  do  not  think 
Wagner  understood  them,  any  more  than  I ; 
he  merely  transcribed  them  from  the  river. 
It  was  strange  to  think  that  there  they  were, 
in  uncomprehended  echo,  again  appealing  to 
mortal  spirits  across  the  barrier  of  the  limited 
human  intelligence. 

At  sea,  also,  I  once  heard  this  unavailing 
cry.  It  was  a  hundred  miles,  and  more,  from 


The  Earth-Spirit's  Voices  49 

the  coast  of  Brazil.  The  night  was  clear  star 
light,  the  breeze  light  and  steady,  so  that  we 
were  sailing  silently.  The  stillness,  indeed, 
was  so  unusual  that  we  were  all  leaning  at  the 
weather  rail,  listening  to  it,  and  peering  far  off 
into  the  vanishing  waste  of  waves.  Suddenly 
a  distant  cry  arose  from  the  night;  no  one 
could  say  where,  or  how.  Then  it  was  twice 
repeated :  not  a  human  cry,  that  is  certain ; 
perhaps  a  sea-bird's,  but  not  like  that  of  any 
bird  or  beast  I  ever  heard.  If  it  expressed 
anything,  it  was  not  pain  nor  fear,  but  some 
intense,  infinitely  lonely  desire. 

It  is  no  wonder  the  Greeks  felt  the  earth  to 
be  a  spirit.  If  we  are  not  all  pantheists,  the 
wonder  is  that  we  are  not  all  mythologists,  at 
least.  Sometimes  it  has  seemed  to  me  as  these 
following  lines  endeavor  to  express :  — 

NATURE   AND   HER  CHILD 

As  some  poor  child  whose  soul  is  windowless, 
Having  not  hearing,  speech,  nor  sight,  sits  lone 
In  her  dark,  silent  life,  till  cometh  one 
With  a  most  patient  heart,  who  tries  to  guess 

Some  hidden  way  to  help  her  helplessness  ; 

And,  yearning  for  that  spirit  shut  in  stone, 

A  crystal  that  has  never  seen  the  sun, 

Smooths  now  the  hair,  and  now  the  hand  will  press; 


50  Nature 

Or  gives  a  key  to  touch,  then  letters  raised, 

Its  symbol ;  then  an  apple,  or  a  ring, 

And  again  letters,  —  so,  all  blind  and  dumb, 

We  wait ;  the  kindly  smiles  of  summer  come, 

And  soft  winds  touch  our  cheek,  and  thrushes  sing ; 

The  world-heart  yearns,  but  we  stand  dull  and  dazed. 

At  another  time  the  relation  of  the  world  to 
the  human  spirit  has  seemed  to  be  more  truth 
fully  hinted  at  in  lines  like  these  :  — 

THE  FOSTER-MOTHER 

As  some  poor  Indian  woman 

A  captive  child  receives, 
And  warms  it  in  her  bosom, 

And  o'er  its  weeping  grieves  ; 

And  comforts  it  with  kisses, 

And  strives  to  understand 
Its  eager,  lonely  babble, 

Fondling  the  little  hand,  — 

So  Earth,  our  foster-mother, 
Yearns  for  us,  with  her  great 

Wild  heart,  and  croons  in  murmurs 
Low,  inarticulate. 

She  knows  we  are  white  captives, 

Her  dusky  race  above, 
But  the  deep,  childless  bosom 

Throbs  with  its  brooding  love. 


HUMAN   NATURE   IN   CHICKENS 

I  AM  convinced  that  one  important  way  to 
acquire  a  profound  knowledge  of  human  na 
ture  is  to  study  it  in  chickens.  The  difference 
between  the  mental  characteristics  of  the  two 
sexes,  for  example :  the  hen  is  very  peaceable, 
chanticleer  very  irascible  ;  the  hen  is  an  indus 
trious  scratcher,  while  chanticleer  is  naturally 
an  idler,  and  thinks  that  if  he  crows  and  rights, 
that  is  enough ;  the  hen  takes  care  of  the 
chicks  all  day,  chanticleer  only  occasionally 
giving  them  a  bug,  and  oftener  a  dig  ;  the  hen 
takes  care  of  them  all  night  also,  chanticleer 
elbowing  them  off  the  perch  to  get  the  best 
place  for  himself ;  the  hen,  having  seized  an 
other  hen  about  the  head,  never  lets  go  till 
the  feathers  come  out,  and  never  stops  fighting 
till  nearly  dead,  while  chanticleer  fights  only 
for  glory,  and  gives  up  long  before  he  is  hurt 
much ;  when  they  are  fed,  the  hen  attends 
strictly  to  business  and  gets  all  she  can,  while 
chanticleer  will  pick  up  a  morsel,  and  wave  it 
up  and  down  with  frantic  eagerness  to  be  seen 
of  the  hen,  and  values  the  flattery  of  having 
her  take  it  from  him  more  than  the  food. 


52  Nature 

These,  so  far,  are  well-known  observations; 
but  I  wish  to  put  on  record  one  that  is  per 
haps  new,  and,  if  new,  important  to  the  scien 
tific  world.  It  has  been  commonly  supposed 
by  evolutionists  that  the  development  of  altru 
ism  and  the  benevolent  sentiments  in  the  lower 
animals  reaches  no  farther  than  to  the  parental 
and  sex  points  of  view.  But  I  have  seen  one 
of  my  roosters  call  his  fellow  and  feed  a  bug  to 
him.  It  may  have  been  a  bug  that  he  did  not 
specially  want,  himself,  but  this  would  only  be 
a  counterpart  of  much  of  our  higher  human 
benevolence.  Does  not  most  of  our  charity 
consist  in  giving  away  something  for  which  we 
have  no  earthly  use  ourselves  ?  (By  the  way, 
I  have  known  this  altruistic  rooster  to  crow 
with  great  pride  and  pleasure  when  the  object 
of  his  alms-giving  had  humbly  swallowed  the 
scratchy  morsel.)  I  have  seen  a  mother  hen, 
also,  when  another  brood  of  little  chicks  had 
got  mixed  up  with  her  own  for  the  moment, 
making  a  great  pretense  of  pecking  the  aliens 
on  the  head,  to  teach  them  the  difference  be 
tween  families  in  this  world,  but  taking  great 
pains  not  to  hurt  the  fluffy  little  strangers. 
Furthermore,  I  have  noticed  that  certain  other 
hens,  not  mothers  (but  whether  any  who  have 
never  been  mothers  I  have  not  yet  observed), 
will  peck  all  little  chicks  with  self-restraint, 


Human  Nature  in  Chickens  53 

giving  them  as  much  salutary  discipline  as  pos 
sible  without  bodily  harm. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  phenomena  occur 
only  among  domestic  animals,  who  have  caught 
some  morajs  and  manners  from  their  betters 
by  contagion.  But  I  think  this  is  a  subtlety, 
and  that  we  may  as  well  admit  that  the  devel 
opment  of  the  moral  sentiments  begins  farther 
back  than  we  have  been  inclined  to  put  it. 


A  NEW  EARTH  IN  THE  OLD  EARTH'S 
ARMS 

I  HAVE  made  the  discovery  of  new  heavens 
and  a  new  earth.  Who  has  not  felt  the  need 
of  them  ?  Who  has  not  said  to  himself,  "  I 
have  seen  this  whole  thing  over  and  over 
again.  This  world,  which  is  '  round  like  an 
orange,'  has,  like  an  orange,  now  been  effectu 
ally  squeezed.  Give  me  new  worlds,  not  to 
conquer,  but  to  live  in."  When  the  impulse 
to  turn  over  a  new  leaf,  to  break  with  the  past, 
to  begin  life  all  over  again,  is  strong  upon  us, 
we  look  around  in  vain  for  "  fresh  woods  and 
pastures  new  "  in  which  to  begin  it.  How  put 
a  new  soul  of  existence  into  an  old  body  of 
circumstances  ?  But  we  are  no  longer  driven 
to  this  dilemma.  I  do  not  mind  making  pub 
lic,  at  least  to  all  those  choice  spirits  who  read 
a  Certain  Magazine,  the  chart  of  my  newly  dis 
covered  world. 

It  is  the  world  of  the  dawn.  "Oh,  that /" 
cries  my  young  friend  scornfully,  and  is  about 
to  turn  away.  But  let  me  ask  you,  in  confi 
dence,  When  have  you  seen  the  dawn,  the 


A  New  Earth  in  the  Old  Earth's  Arms    55 

whole  of  it,  from  silvery  beginning  to  golden 
end  ?  It  was  not  long  ago  that  an  ingenuous 
maid  asked  me,  looking  up  from  her  favorite 
poet,  "  Is  the  sunrise  so  much,  any  way  ?  " 
No,  I  might  have  said ;  not  if  you  burst  in  on 
it  rudely,  jumping  out  of  bed,  or  sleepily  fum 
bling  aside  a  curtain.  You  only  get,  in  that 
case,  the  flash  of  an  angry  glare.  But  go 
quietly  at  very  daybreak,  steal  to  some  rock, 
or  hill,  or  only  to  some  housetop,  and  lie  in 
wait  for  its  delicate  first  footsteps  in  the  east 
ern  sky.  You  must  stalk  your  sunrise. 

How  often  do  we  hear  somebody  say,  "  I  hud 
to  get  up  early  this  morning,  and  I  wondered 
why  we  don't  always  do  it  "  !  But  the  chances 
are  it  was  a  very  inadequate  experience.  There 
was  some  invalid  to  be  tended,  or  some  owl- 
train  to  be  caught.  Taken  deliberately,  and 
provided  for  beforehand  by  a  full  night's  sleep, 
the  wonder  why  we  do  not  always  do  it  would 
be  vastly  increased.  Why  we  do  not,  how 
ever,  is  plain  enough.  It  is  because  we  can 
not  afford  to  burn  our  candle  at  both  ends. 
"Early  to  bed  and  early  to  rise,"  the  whole 
prescription  reads.  It  does  not  do  to  take 
half  of  it  alone.  If  we  are  to  see  the  morning- 
star  properly,  the  evening-star  must  draw  on 
our  night-cap  with  its  own. 

The  dawn,  then,  is  protected  from  the  throng 


56  Nature 

of  sacrilegious  sight-seers  by  a  great  barrier. 
That  barrier  is  the  difficulty  of  going  to  bed. 
Our  civilization  has  become  a  gaslight  civiliza 
tion.  We  try  to  turn  night  into  day,  and  only 
succeed  in  turning  night  wrong  side  out;  get 
ting  the  harsh  and  wiry  side  that  rasps  the 
jaded  nerves,  in  place  of  the  gentle  touches  of 
"  the  welcome,  the  thrice  prayed  for  "  mantle 
of  peaceful  dreams. 

It  is  diverting,  to  say  the  least,  to  take  now 
and  then  a  point  of  view  outside  of  all  our 
most  cherished  customs,  even  those  that  seem 
to  us  most  "natural,"  because  our  patient  na 
tures  have  been  so  completely  twisted  into 
them,  as  the  jar  to  the  jar-bred  Chinese  dwarf. 
Casting  such  a  glance  from  outside  at  our  gas 
light  habits,  we  suddenly  see  something  absurd 
in  them.  Standing  in  a  crowded  and  bril 
liantly  glaring  room,  half  deafened  by  the  hor 
rid  discord  of  a  hundred  jabbering  tongues, 
we  find  it  a  relic  of  barbarism.  We  see  the 
dancing  rings  of  savages,  yelling  and  beating 
tom-toms  around  a  blazing  fire.  How  much 
better  off  all  these  people  would  be,  we  think 
(supposing  the  din  and  confusion  permit  us  to 
hear  ourselves  think),  if  they  were  all  comfort 
ably  in  bed,  preparing  their  nervous  machinery 
for  a  sane  and  energetic  day  to-morrow  !  For 
my  part,  I  should  be  glad  if  I  could  go  back 


A  New  Earth  in  the  Old  Earth's  Arms    57 

and  cut  away  from  my  life  all  that  ever  oc 
curred  in  it  beyond  early  bedtime,  as  the  cook 
goes  round  a  pie-plate  and  shears  off  the  out 
lying  dough.  Mere  ragged  and  formless  shreds 
of  existence  those  gaslight  hours  have  been, 
containing,  on  the  whole,  far  more  evil  than 
good  ;  far  more  yawns,  and  the  dreadful  pangs 
of  yawns  suppressed,  than  refreshing  eye-beams 
and  voices. 

Then  there  is  another  thing  :  could  not  the 
act  of  going  to  bed  be  made,  from  childhood 
up,  a  less  depressing  operation  ?  The  one  daily 
torture  of  my  own  otherwise  kindly  handled 
childhood  was  the  going  to  bed  in  the  dark. 
I  hated  the  dark,  and  have  always  hated  it. 
Why  could  not  some  softly  shaded  light  have 
been  left  for  me  to  go  to  sleep  by,  and  then 
withdrawn,  instead  of  crashing  down  on  my 
wide-awake  eyes  that  horrible  club  of  black 
ness  ?  Or  how  much  better  to  have  "  cuddled 
doon  "  in  the  still  faintly  glimmering  twilight, 
and  let  the  slowly  coming  starlight  draw  the 
child  to  sleepiness,  and  softly  "  kiss  his  eyelids 
down  "  ! 

And  why  must  one  assume  a  garb  for  the 
night  that  even  the  child  feels  to  be  ridicu 
lously  unsuitable  ?  To  take  off  one's  warm 
and  comfortably  fitting  garments,  and  barely 
cover  the  shrinking  pudency  of  the  limbs  with 


58  Nature 

some  brief  apology  of  flapping  inadequateness, 

—  it  is  an  insult  to  the  Angel  of  Sleep.     They 
do  this  better,  I  am  told,  in  Japan.     There  the 
man  has  a  night-suit  of  entire  and  comely  gar 
ments.     He  does  not  unclothe  and  then  half 
clothe  himself,  and  sneak  in  mortified  helpless 
ness  underneath  a  weight  of  vein-compressing 
sheets  and  blankets  and  uncomfortable  "  com 
fortables,"    squeezing    him    out    as    if   he  had 
covered  himself  with  the  cellar-door.     He  lies 
down  in  his  complete  warm  suit,  and   throws 
over  him  some  light  affair  of  gossamer  silk.    It 
only  needs  a  sudden  cry  of  "  fire  "  in  the  house 
to  make  us  realize  the  preposterous  condition 
we  are  every  one  of  us  in. 

The  time  of  Going  to  Bed  ought  in  some 
way  to  be  made  the  pleasantest,  and  most  de 
corous,  and  most  dignified,  even  —  if  you  like 

—  the  most  picturesque,  and  certainly  the  most 
comfortable    hour   of    the    whole    twenty-four. 
Then  it  would   need  no  polite  euphemism  of 
"  retiring  "  to  veil  its  horrors.     Then  the  child 
would  no  longer  hold  back  from  it,  as  if  he 
were  being  thrust  into  a  hideous  cave  of  dark 
ness,  to  be  seized   by  all   the  nightmares  of 
Dreamdom. 

And  then,  best  of  all,  we  should  be  ready  to 
rise  at  the  whistle  of  the  first  chirping  bird, 
perfectly  rested,  thoroughly  refreshed,  with  the 


A  New  Earth  in  the  Old  Earth's  Arms    59 

brain  vocal  only  with  light  echoes  of  the  whole 
some  day  before,  instead  of  still  jangling  with 
the  cultured  rumpus  of  a  "  social  evening,"  or 
an  "  evening  of  amusement,"  or  the  uncanny, 
fevered  visions  which  are  only  such  evenings 
gone  to  seed.  We  should  see  the  heavens  at 
their  purest,  on  earth  peace,  the  big  white 
stars  at  their  best,  unconfused  by  the  haze  of 
smaller  stars  and  star-dust,  and  shining  alone 
in  the  faintly  illumined  sky.  We  should  know 
how  our  earth  and  its  robe  of  ambient  air  ap 
pear  to  other  planets,  —  a  morning-star  to  the 
morning-stars.  For  the  whole  east,  as  it  pales 
the  planets  in  its  growing  light,  is  itself  of  pure 
and  starry  brightness.  But  if  I  am  going  to 
write  of  the  dawn,  I  may  as  well  do  it  in  verse, 
and  have  done  with  it :  — 

AT   EARLY   MORN 

Walk  who  will  at  deep  of  noon, 
Or  stroll  fantastic  in  the  moon  ; 
I  would  take  the  morning  earth, 
New  as  at  creation's  birth, 
Air  unbreathed,  and  grass  untrod  ; 
Where  I  cross  the  dawn-lit  sod, 
Making  green  paths  in  the  gray 
Of  the  dew  that 's  brushed  away. 

Would  some  depth  of  holy  night. 
Sacred  with  its  starry  light, 


60  Nature 

Over  all  my  breast  might  roll, 
Bringing  dawn  unto  my  soul, 
That  its  consecrated  dew 
Might  refresh  and  make  me  new  f 
Then  that  thou  and  I  might  pace 
Some  far  planet,  poised  in  space, 
Fresh  as  children  innocent, 
In  each  other's  love  content ! 
There  our  feet  should  recommence, 
Lightened  of  experience, 
Morning  ways  on  dewy  slope, 
Winged  with  wonder  and  with  hope ; 
All  the  things  we  'd  thought,  or  done, 
Or  felt  before,  forgot  —  save  one  1 


literature  anti  Criticism 

SHAKESPEARE'S   PROSE 

UT  did  Shakespeare  write  any  prose  ? 

the   ingenuous   reader    may   inquire. 

Indeed  he  did,  a  good  deal  of  it.  We 
always  think  of  him,  to  be  sure,  as  a  poet.  In 
fact,  hardly  any  other  name  in  literature  seems 
so  far  removed  from  any  association  with  prose 
as  this  of  the  world's  greatest  dramatist.  His 
plays,  however,  constantly  show  that  he  was  a 
master  not  of  verse  only.  "  The  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor  "  is,  with  trifling  exceptions,  writ 
ten  in  prose  ;  so  is  nearly  the  whole  of  "  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing."  Not  only  in  the  lighter 
plays,  but  in  the  tragedies,  also,  a  considerable 
amount  of  prose  exists.  For  instance,  about 
half  of  "  Henry  IV.,  Part  I.,"  is  prose,  and 
about  a  quarter  of  "  Hamlet."  This  feature  of 
Shakespeare's  writings  has  been  generally  over 
looked.  For  many  reasons  it  is  well  worth 
careful  study.  But  first  a  preliminary  word  as 
to  his  verse. 

Except  for  scattered  bits  of  lyrical  verse  in 


62  Literature  and  Criticism 

light  rhyming  measures,  the  metre  of  Shake 
speare's  dramas,  wherever  he  employs  metre, 
is  what  is  commonly  known  as  "blank  verse." 
This,  to  speak  technically,  is  iambic  pentameter 
without  rhyme.  That  is  to  say,  each  line  con 
sists  of  five  feet,  each  foot  being  an  iambus ; 
that  is,  an  accented  syllable  following  an  unac 
cented  one.  Any  other  metre  might  be  used 
without  rhyme,  and  be  properly  called  blank 
(for  example,  "  Hiawatha  "  is  written  in  blank 
trochaic  tetrameter,  "  Evangeline "  in  blank 
hexameter)  ;  but  the  blank  iambic  pentameter 
has  proved  so  much  more  serviceable  in  Eng 
lish  verse  than  any  other,  as  to  have  appropri 
ated  to  itself  the  name  of  "  blank  verse." 

This  measure,  though  it  is  so  familiar  to  us 
at  the  present  day,  as  the  form  in  which  we 
have  read  Shakespeare  and  Milton  and  Words 
worth  and  the  "  Idylls  of  the  King  "  (as  well  as, 
unfortunately,  much  of  the  feeblest  verse  ex 
tant,  since  so  many  pens  have  a  fearful  facility 
in  producing  it),  was  an  unpopular  innovation 
in  Shakespeare's  early  days.  Until  about  the 
year  1590,  when  "  Marlowe's  mighty  line  "  first 
resounded  in  "  Tamberlaine,"  the  drama  (so 
far  as  it  existed  at  all)  was  confined  to  prose 
or  to  rhymed  measures.  Blank  verse  had  been 
introduced  into  England  by  Surrey's  transla 
tion  of  the  /Eneid  half  a  century  before,  and 


Shakespeare's  Prose  63 

Sackville  had  made  the  first  experiment  of  its 
fitness  for  the  drama  in  his  tragedy  of  "  Gor- 
boduc,"  produced  in  1561 ;  but  in  his  hands  it 
was  stiff  and  unwieldy.  Marlowe's  manage 
ment  of  it  was  easier  and  more  powerful ;  but 
Shakespeare  was  the  first  to  develop  the  real 
capabilities  of  its  majestic  rhythm. 

Not  only  was  Shakespeare  the  first  to  use 
with  complete  success  the  much  abused  "  blank 
iambics,"  but  he  was  the  first  (and  the  last)  to 
mingle  with  masterful  skill  his  verse  with  prose. 
Ben  Jonson,  as  well  as  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
wrote  some  of  their  dramas  in  verse  and  some 
in  prose,  and  occasionally  made  use  of  both  in 
the  same  play,  but  never  mingled  the  two 
throughout,  as  did  Shakespeare,  with  exqui 
sitely  perfect  art.  It  is  to  this  prose  that  the 
reader's  attention  is  invited,  with  the  special 
view  of  asking  and  making  some  suggestions 
toward  answering  the  question,  Why  did  Shake 
speare  use  prose,  in  the  passages  where  he  did 
so,  instead  of  verse  ? 

We  may  be  sure  that  the  master  poet  did  not 
write  prose  at  certain  times  by  accident,  or 
because  he  was  tired  of  rhythm,  or  because  it 
was  the  easiest  way.  His  choice  was  certainly 
in  every  case  deliberate,  or  (what  comes  to  the 
same  thing)  was  based  on  an  instinctive  sense 
of  certain  underlying  laws  of  expression.  When 


64  Literature  and  Criticism 

he  wrote  verse  it  was  because  prose,  in  that 
particular  place,  would  not  serve  his  turn  ;  and 
when  he  changed  from  verse,  as  he  so  con 
tinually  did,  to  prose,  it  was  from  his  sense  of  a 
similar  limitation  in  the  capabilities  of  rhythm. 

A  complete  answer  to  our  inquiry,  then, 
would  at  the  same  time  go  far  toward  answer 
ing  the  deeper  question  as  to  the  respective 
possibilities  of  prose  and  verse  as  forms  of 
human  expression.  Perhaps,  indeed,  there 
could  be  no  better  way  of  investigating  that 
great  problem  of  literary  art  than  by  searching 
for  the  principles  which  guided  this  master 
artist  in  his  choice  of  these  two  forms  of  ex 
pression,  both  of  which  he  used  so  perfectly, 
changing  from  one  to  the  other  as  constantly 
and  easily  as  the  sea-bird  from  its  home  in  the 
air  to  its  home  on  the  wave. 

Let  us  look  at  the  prose  of  "  Hamlet,"  as 
being,  perhaps  (thanks  especially  to  Mr.  Mc- 
Cullough),  as  familiar  as  any  to  most  readers, 
and  as  furnishing  examples  of  all  that  is  best 
in  Shakespeare.  The  first  departure  from  the 
blank  verse  occurs  in  Act  II.,  Scene  2,  where 
Polonius  reads  Hamlet's  letters  :  — 

Pol.  [Reads]  "To  the  celestial  and  my  soul's  idol,  the 
most  beautified  Ophelia,"  —  That 's  an  ill  phrase,  a  vile 
phrase ;  beautified  is  a  vile  phrase  :  but  you  shall  hear. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  in  Shakespeare  letters 


Shakespeare's  Prose  65 

are  thrown  into  the  form  of  prose.  The  pur 
pose  seems  to  be  to  indicate  that  they  are 
brought  in  from  without.  The  natural  speech 
of  the  dialogue  being  blank  verse,  anything 
which  breaks  in  on  it  from  outside  must  be 
either  in  some  different  metre  or  in  prose.  In 
certain  cases,  as  in  the  play  within  the  play, 
in  "  Hamlet,"  the  former  device  is  chosen  ; 
in  the  case  of  letters,  the  latter.  In  the  play 
within  the  play,  the  effect  of  a  more  artificial 
form  of  verse  with  rhymes  is  to  throw  the 
action  one  step  farther  back,  away  from  the 
actual  life  of  the  spectator.  In  letters,  on  the 
contrary,  the  effect  of  the  prose,  breaking  in  on 
the  blank  verse,  is  usually  to  bring  before  us 
the  world  of  real  life  and  affairs,  if  not  outside 
of  the  play,  at  least  outside  of  the  present 
scene.1 

Shortly  after  the  reading  of  the  letter  (the 
dialogue,  meanwhile,  proceeding  in  verse), 
Hamlet  enters,  reading.  Being  "  boarded " 
by  Polonius,  he  at  once  begins  answering  him 
in  prose,  affecting  madness,  though  with 
"method  in  it." 

Pol.   Away,  I  do  beseech  you,  both  away  : 

1  For  a  notable  instance  of  Shakespeare's  power  to 
shift  the  spectator's  point  of  view  and  wholly  change 
his  atmosphere,  see  the  essay  of  De  Quincey  upon  "  The 
Knocking  at  the  Gate,"  in  Macbeth. 


66  Literature  and  Criticism 

I  '11  board  him  presently. 

[Exeunt  King,  Queen,  and  Attendants, 

O,  give  me  leave. 
How  does  my  good  Lord  Hamlet  ? 

Ham.    Well,  God-a-mercy. 

Pol.   Do  you  know  me,  my  lord  ? 

Ham.    Excellent  well ;  you  're  a  fishmonger. 

Pol.   Not  I,  my  lord. 

Ham.    Then  I  would  you  were  so  honest  a  man. 

Pol.   Honest,  my  lord  ? 

Ham.  Ay,  sir  ;  to  be  honest,  as  this  world  goes,  is  to 
be  one  man  picked  out  of  ten  thousand. 

Pol.  .  .  .  My  honourable  lord,  I  will  most  humbly  take 
my  leave  of  you. 

Ham.  You  cannot,  sir,  take  from  me  anything  that  I 
will  more  willingly  part  withal  —  \Aside\  except  my 
life,  except  my  life,  except  my  life. 

This  scene  is  written  in  prose  evidently  for 
the  reason  that  there  is  no  earnest  feeling  in 
it.  As  for  Polonius,  he  is  "  going  about  to 
recover  the  wind  "  of  the  prince ;  and  Ham 
let  himself  has  "  put  an  antic  disposition  on," 
as  he  warned  his  friends  that  he  would  some 
times  do. 

The  essential  function  of  poetry  is  to  express 
feeling.  A  scene,  then,  which  is  only  an  intel 
lectual  sparring  match  between  a  would-be 
courtier  and  an  assumed  madman,  could  find 
no  fitting  expression  in  verse. 

Moreover,  verse  is  by  its  very  structure  or- 


Shakespeare's  Prose  67 

derly  and  regulated.  Its  rhythm  consists  in  a 
constant  subjection  to  a  ruling  law.  Accord 
ingly  it  is  the  natural  expression  for  that  feel 
ing  only  which  is  under  the  control  of  reason. 
Madness  of  every  form  must  necessarily  break 
through  its  laws  into  irregular  prose.  Hence 
Hamlet,  when  speaking  in  his  character  of  a 
madman,  always  uses  prose.  So  does  the  really 
mad  Ophelia,  except  when  her  utter  lunacy 
goes  beyond  prose  into  incoherent  snatches  of 
fantastic  song.  So  does  King  Lear  when  mad, 
except  where  the  coherence  and  earnestness  of 
his  thoughts  bring  them  for  the  moment  into 
verse.  So  does  Edgar,  when  affecting  mad 
ness. 

At  the  end  of  the  scene  quoted  above,  in  the 
midst  of  his  last  reply  to  Polonius,  Hamlet 
suddenly  turns  away  and  utters  to  himself  his 
own  sad  thought,  which  clothes  itself  in  rhythm 
(though  the  words  are  always  printed  in  the 
form  of  prose),  thus  :  — 

"  except  my  life,  except  my  life,  except  my  life." 

Then  enter  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern. 
With  them,  too,  Hamlet  speaks  in  prose.  He 
does  not  affect  madness,  as  with  Polonius,  but 
he  is  suspicious  of  them,  and  so  gives  them 
none  of  his  sincere  thoughts,  holding  them  at 
arm's  length  in  his  bantering  prose.  Midway 


68  Literature  and  Criticism 

in  the  conversation,  Hamlet  betrays  them  into 
confessing  that  they  were  sent  for  by  the  King. 

Ham.  [Aside.]  Nay,  then,  I  have  an  eye  of  you.  —  If 
you  love  me,  hold  not  off. 

GUI'/.   My  lord,  we  were  sent  for. 

Ham.  I  will  tell  you  why  ;  so  shall  my  anticipation 
prevent  your  discovery,  and  your  secrecy  to  the  King 
and  Queen  moult  no  feather.  I  have  of  late  (but  where 
fore  I  know  not)  lost  all  my  mirth,  forgone  all  custom 
of  exercises ;  and  indeed  it  goes  so  heavily  with  my 
disposition,  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  seems  to 
me  a  sterile  promontory ;  this  most  excellent  canopy,  the 
air,  look  you  —  this  brave,  o'erhanging  firmament,  this 
majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire  —  why,  it  ap 
pears  no  other  thing  to  me  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  con 
gregation  of  vapours.  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man  ! 
how  noble  in  reason !  how  infinite  in  faculty  !  in  form 
and  moving  how  express  and  admirable !  in  action  how 
like  an  angel!  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god!  the 
beauty  of  the  world  !  the  paragon  of  animals!  And  yet, 
to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust  ?  Man  delights 
not  me ;  no,  nor  woman,  neither,  though  by  your  smiling 
you  seem  to  say  so. 

This  passage  is  always  quoted  as  if  it  were 
one  of  Hamlet's  sincere  and  earnest  utterances. 
It  would  not  have  been  spoken  in  prose  if  it 
were  so.  When  he  says  "  I  have  of  late  (but 
wherefore  I  know  not)  lost  all  my  mirth,"  etc., 
he  is  by  no  means  speaking  from  his  heart.  In 
reality,  he  knows  very  well  "  wherefore."  These, 
remember,  are  the  false  friends  of  whom  he 


Shakespeare's  Prose  69 

afterward    says    (speaking    now    sincerely   in 
verse)  :  — 

..."  my  two  school-fellows, 
Whom  I  will  trust  as  I  will  adders  fang'd." 

He  is  putting  them  off  their  guard  as  spies 
by  attributing  his  mood  to  such  melancholy  as 
any  man  might  be  liable  to,  when  for  the  time 
he  is  "  sick  of  life,  love,  all  things,"  or  when,  in 
other  words,  he  has  an  ordinary  attack  of  "  the 
blues."  It  is  not  such  friends  as  these  that  he 
will  suffer  to  look  into  his  very  soul,  and  so,  in 
prose,  he  parries  their  advances. 

His  mockery  of  Polonius  by  the  same  test  is 
only  put  on  to  serve  his  purpose.  It  is  notice 
able  that  he  will  not  have  him  mocked  by  oth 
ers,  for  he  says  to  the  players  as  they  are 
going  out  together  (and  his  words  by  their 
earnestness  fall  out  of  the  prose  in  the  midst 
of  which  they  occur  into  metre)  :  — 

"  Follow  that  lord,  and  look  you  mock  him  not." 

At  the  end  of  the  scene  Hamlet  dismisses 
his  two  school-fellows,  still  in  prose.  As  soon 
as  they  are  gone,  however,  and  he  is  once  more 
alone,  dropping  the  twofold  mask  of  jesting 
madness  (worn  before  Polonius)  and  causeless 
depression  (before  Rosencrantz  and  Guilden- 
stern)  he  communes  with  his  own  heart  in  sor 
rowful  verse :  — 


70  Literature  and  Criticism 

Ham.    .  .  .  My  good  friends,  I  '11  leave  you  till  night : 
you  are  welcome  to  Elsinore. 
fios.   Good  my  lord ! 
Ham.  Ay,  so,  God  b'  wi'  ye.     [Exeunt  Kos.  and  Guild. 

Now  I  am  alone. 

O,  what  a  rogue  and  peasant  slave  am  I  ! 
Is  it  not  monstrous,  that  this  player  here, 
But  in  a  fiction,  in  a  dream  of  passion, 
Could  force  his  soul  so  to  his  own  conceit, 
That  from  her  working  all  his  visage  wann'd; 
Tears  in  his  eyes,  distraction  in  's  aspect, 
A  broken  voice,  and  his  whole  function  suiting 
With  forms  to  his  conceit  ?  and  all  for  nothing! 
For  Hecuba ! 

What 's  Hecuba  to  him,  or  he  to  Hecuba, 
That  he  should  weep  for  her?     What  would  he  do, 
Had  he  the  motive  and  the  cue  for  passion 
That  I  have  ?  .  .  . 
.  .  .  The  spirit  that  I  have  seen 
May  be  the  Devil :  and  the  Devil  hath  power 
T'  assume  a  pleasing  shape ;  yea,  and  perhaps, 
Out  of  my  weakness  and  my  melancholy, 
As  he  is  very  potent  with  such  spirits, 
Abuses  me  to  damn  me  :  I  '11  have  grounds 
More  relative  than  this :  the  play  's  the  thing 
Wherein  I  '11  catch  the  conscience  of  the  King.    [Exit. 

The  last  lines  of  the  soliloquy  are  quoted 
to  illustrate  the  habit  of  closing  a  passage  of 
blank  verse  with  rhyme.  For  this  there  is  a 
good  reason.  It  is  because  the  rhythm  of  the 
verse  finds  some  difficulty  in  stopping.  Its 
very  movement  suggests  continuance.  Its 
stately  flow,  free  from  rhyme,  can  scarcely 


Shakespeare's  Prose  71 

come  to  a  full  close,  any  more  than  a  wave, 
rolling  in  from  ocean,  could  pause  in  full  ca 
reer.  It  must  break  in  order  to  stop,  either 
by  a  hemistich  (or  half-line),  which  is  abrupt  at 
the  best,  as  if  the  wave  shattered  against  a 
rock ;  or  by  a  smooth  rhyme,  which  is  like  the 
wave's  slipping  up  the  beach  in  spent  ripples. 

The  next  prose  passage  in  "  Hamlet  "  is  the 
nunnery  scene.  It  is  just  after  the  great  solil 
oquy,  "To  be,  or  not  to  be,"  etc.,  which  ends 
thus : — 

Ham.   Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all ; 
And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought ; 
And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action.  —  Soft  you  now! 
The  fair  Ophelia  !     Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered. 

Oph.  Good  my  lord, 

How  does  your  honour  this  many  a  day  ? 

Ham.    I  humbly  thank  you ;  well,  well,  well. 

Oph.   My  lord,  I  have  remembrances  of  yours, 
That  I  have  longed  long  to  re-deliver; 
I  pray  you,  now  receive  them. 

Ham.  No,  not  I ; 

I  never  gave  you  aught. 

Oph.   My  honour'd  lord,  you  know  right  well  you  did ; 
And,  with  them,  words  of  so  sweet  breath  composed, 
As  made  the  things  more  rich  ;  their  perfume  lost, 
Take  these  again ;  for  to  the  noble  mind 
Rich  gifts  wax  poor  when  givers  prove  unkind. 
There,  my  lord. 


72  Literature  and  Criticism 

Ham.    Ha,  ha  !     Are  you  honest  ? 

Oph.   My  lord  ? 

Ham.    Are  you  fair  ? 

Oph.   What  means  your  lordship  ? 

Ham.  That,  if  you  be  honest  and  fair,  your  honesty 
should  admit  no  discourse  to  your  beauty.  ...  I  did 
love  you  once. 

Oph.   Indeed,  my  lord,  you  made  me  believe  so. 

Ham.  You  should  not  have  believed  me  :  for  virtue 
cannot  so  inoculate  our  old  stock  but  we  shall  relish  of 
it :  I  loved  you  not. 

Oph.   I  was  the  more  deceived. 

Ham.  Get  thee  to  a  nunnery  :  why  wouldst  thou  be  a 
breeder  of  sinners  ?  I  am  myself  indifferent  honest ; 
but  yet  I  could  accuse  me  of  such  things  that  it  were 
better  my  mother  had  not  borne  me. 

In  this  scene,  whether  because  he  suspects 
that  the  King  and  Queen  are  listening,  or  for 
some  other  reason,  Hamlet  rails  at  Ophelia  in 
a  coarse,  hard  fashion.  He  has  on  his  mask 
of  madness,  and  whatever  comes  through  that 
must  be  spoken  in  prose.  Observe,  however, 
that  his  first  utterances  to  her,  being  sincere, 
are  rhythmical :  — 

"  The  fair  Ophelia  !     Nymph,  in  thy  orisons 
Be  all  my  sins  remembered." 

And 

"  I  humbly  thank  you  ;  well,  well,  well." 

This  last  is  a  complete  pentameter  line,  pro 
vided  we  allow  the  pause  between  the  last 
words,  each  to  take  one  beat  of  the  rhythm  (a 


Shakespeare's  Prose  73 

device  which  is  often  to  be  found  in  Shake 
speare.  For  instance,  in  the  line  quoted  above, 
beginning,  "  For  Hecuba  !  "  the  natural  pause 
after  the  exclamation  fills  out  the  line).  That 
is  to  say,  wherever  the  real  heart  of  Hamlet 
speaks  to  her,  or  of  her  (as  in  the  scene  at  the 
grave),  it  expresses  itself  in  rhythm  :  wherever 
he  speaks  through  the  mask  of  madness,  his 
words  are  prose. 

Scene  2  opens  with  Hamlet's  instructions  to 
the  players :  — 

"  Speak  the  speech,  I  pray  you,  as  I  pronounced  it  to 
you,  trippingly  on  the  tongue ;  but  if  you  mouth  it,  as 
many  of  your  players  do,  I  had  as  lief  the  town-crier 
spoke  my  lines.  Nor  do  not  saw  the  air  too  much  with 
your  hand,  thus,  but  use  all  gently,"  etc. 

This  is  in  the  prose  form  because  it  is  prac 
tical,  business-like,  professional  advice.  It  is 
not  the  real  Hamlet  —  the  Prince  of  Denmark 
—  that  speaks  it ;  or,  if  it  be,  it  is  not  from 
the  storm-brooding  deeps  of  his  breast  that  it 
comes,  but  from  the  surface  of  his  mind. 

When  the  players  have  gone  out,  and  he  has 
sent  away  the  others,  he  calls  to  him  his  true 
friend,  Horatio.  With  him,  as  before,  he  im 
mediately  begins  to  speak  in  verse,  for  now 
the  real  Hamlet  is  uttering  the  sincerity  of  his 
soul. 

Then   follows   the   scene   of   the   poisoning 


74  Literature  and  Criticism 

play.  Twice  only,  during  this,  does  Hamlet 
drop  his  mask  and  speak  in  rhythm.  Both  in 
stances  are  spoken  aside  to  Ophelia,  and  both 
are  but  fragments  of  lines.  The  first  is  after 
the  prologue  has  been  recited  :  — 

Oph.   'T  is  brief,  my  lord. 
Ham.  As  woman's  love. 

The  second  is  where  the  play-queen  makes 
a  vow  never,  once  a  widow,  to  be  a  wife  :  — 

Ham.    [To  Ophelia}  If  she  should  break  it  now  ? 

After  the  King  has  broken  off  the  play  and 
Hamlet  is  left  alone  with  Horatio,  it  might  be 
expected  that  he  would  express  his  exultation 
to  his  friend  in  verse.  But  it  is  like  a  real 
madman  that  he  now  speaks.  Half  frenzied 
with  excitement  by  the  suspense,  and  then  by 
the  success  of  his  plot,  he  breaks  out  into 
hysterical  gayety,  in  scraps  of  rhyme,  mingled 
with  disjointed  prose.  Just  so,  afterward,  does 
the  crazed  Ophelia. 

Then  with  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  he 
talks  again,  at  first  bantering,  then  sharply  re 
proving  them  ;  but  both  moods  are  of  the  cool 
mind,  not  of  the  earnest  heart,  and  are  there 
fore  expressed  in  prose  :  — 

Re-enter  Players  with  recorders. 
Ham.   O,  the  recorders  !  let  me  see  one.     To  with- 


Shakespeare's  Prose  75 

draw  with  you  :  —  why  do  you  go  about  to  recover  the 
wind  of  me,  as  if  you  would  drive  me  into  a  toil  ? 

Guil.  O,  my  lord,  if  my  duty  be  too  bold,  my  love  is 
too  unmannerly. 

Ham.  I  do  not  well  understand  that.  Will  you  play 
upon  this  pipe  ? 

GuiL   My  lord,  I  cannot. 

Ham.   I  pray  you. 

Gttil.   Believe  me,  I  cannot. 

Ham.   I  do  beseech  you. 

Guil.   I  know  no  touch  of  it,  my  lord. 

Ham.  'Tis  as  easy  as  lying;  govern  these  ventages 
with  your  fingers  and  thumb,  give  it  breath  with  your 
mouth,  and  it  will  discourse  most  eloquent  music.  Look 
you,  these  are  the  stops. 

Guil.  But  these  cannot  I  command  to  any  utterance 
of  harmony ;  I  have  not  the  skill. 

Ham.  Why,  look  you  now,  how  unworthy  a  thing  you 
make  of  me  !  You  would  play  upon  me ;  you  would 
seem  to  know  my  stops ;  you  would  pluck  out  the  heart 
of  my  mystery ;  you  would  sound  me  from  my  lowest 
note  to  the  top  of  my  compass :  and  there  is  much  mu 
sic,  excellent  voice,  in  this  little  organ ;  yet  cannot  you 
make  it  speak.  'Sblood,  do  you  think  I  am  easier  to  be 
played  on  than  a  pipe  ?  Call  me  what  instrument  you 
will,  though  you  can  fret  me,  yet  you  cannot  play  upon 
me. 

When  Polonius  comes  in  to  summon  him  to 
the  Queen,  Hamlet  "  plays  upon  "  him  in  this 
wise :  — 

Ham.   Do  you  see  yonder  cloud  that 's  almost  in  shape 
of  a  camel  ? 
Pol.   By  the  mass,  and  it 's  like  a  camel,  indeed. 


76  Literature  and  Criticism 

Hum.    Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

Pol.   It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

Ham.  Or  like  a  whale  ? 

Pol.    Very  like  a  whale. 

Ham.  Then  I  will  come  to  my  mother  by  and  by. 
[Aside]  They  fool  me  to  the  top  of  my  bent.  I  will 
come  by  and  by. 

But,  in  every  other  case,  when  he  has  said, 
"  Leave  me,  friends,"  and  he  is  left  alone,  his 
own  thought  expresses  itself  in  rhythm. 

There  is  no  more  prose  till  Scene  3  of  Act 
IV.  Here,  in  his  character  of  madman,  he 
speaks  concerning  the  body  of  Polonius,  whom 
he  has  slain  by  mistake  for  the  King.  So  in 
the  next  scene  :  — 

King.   Now,  Hamlet,  where  's  Polonius  ? 
Ham.   At  supper. 
King.   At  supper  !    Where  ? 

Ham.  Not  where  he  eats,  but  where  he  is  eaten :  a 
certain  convocation  of  politic  worms  are  e'en  at  him. 

King.    Where  is  Polonius  ? 

Ham.  In  heaven  ;  send  thither  to  see  :  if  your  messen 
ger  find  him  not  there,  seek  him  i'  the  other  place  your 
self.  But  indeed,  if  you  find  him  not  within  this  month, 
you  shall  nose  him  as  you  go  up  the  stairs  into  the  lobby. 

King.    Go  seek  him  there.  [To  some  Attendants. 

Ham.    He  will  stay  till  ye  come. 

In  Act  IV.,  Scene  5,  occurs  the  most  piteous 
passage  in  all  Shakespeare,  that  of  Ophelia's 
madness  ;  yet  it  is  in  prose  :  — 


Shakespeare's  Prose  77 

Queen.   Nay,  but,  Ophelia,  — 
Oph.    Pray  you,  mark. 

[Sings]    White  his  shroud  as  the  mountain  snow, — 
Queen.   Alas,  look  here,  my  lord. 
Oph.   [Sing's]   Larded  with  sweet  flowers ; 
Which  bewept  to  the  grave  did  go 

With  true-love  showers. 
King.   How  do  you,  pretty  lady  ? 
Oph.   Well,  God  'ild  you !     They  say  the  owl  was 
a  baker's  daughter.     Lord,  we  know  what  we  are,  but 
know  not  what  we  may  be.     God  be  at  your  table  ! 
King.    Conceit  upon  her  father. 

Oph.   Pray  you,  let  's   have  no  words   of   this ;   but 
when  they  ask  you  what  it  means,  say  you  this : 
[Sing's]    To-morrow  is  Saint  Valentine's  day, 

All  in  the  morning  betime, 
And  I  a  maid  at  your  window, 
To  be  your  Valentine. 

King.    How  long  hath  she  been  thus  ? 

Oph.  I  hope  all  will  be  well.  We  must  be  patient : 
but  I  cannot  choose  but  weep,  to  think  they  should  lay 
him  i'  the  cold  ground.  My  brother  shall  know  of  it : 
and  so  I  thank  you  for  your  good  counsel.  Come,  my 
coach  !  Good-night,  ladies  ;  —  good-night,  sweet  ladies ; 
good-night,  good-night. 

In  such  scenes  as  this  there  is  no  place  for 
the  steady  beat  of  verse,  the  essential  nature 
of  which  is  regulated  and  orderly  rhythm, 
whereas  the  very  characteristic  of  the  crazed 
brain  is  its  unregulated,  disjointed  action  — 
"  like  sweet  bells  jangled,  out  of  tune  and 
harsh."  Chaotic  scraps  of  prose,  obeying  no 


78  Literature  and  Criticism 

order  but  a  haphazard  surface  association, 
must  now  be  its  mode  of  expression.  The  bits 
of  lyrical  verse,  breaking  in  at  random  with 
their  mock  suggestion  of  light-hearted  gayety, 
still  further  deepen  the  effect  by  most  pathetic 
contrast. 

Act  V.  opens  with  the  churchyard  scene,  and 
the  making  ready  of  Ophelia's  grave  :  — 

Enter  two  Clowns,  with  spades  and  pickaxes, 

2  Clo.  Will  you  ha'  the  truth  on 't  ?  If  this  had  not 
been  a 'gentlewoman,  she  should  have  been  buried  out 
o'  Christian  burial. 

1  Clo.  Why,  there  thou  say'st :  and  the  more  pity  that 
great  folk  should   have  countenance  in  this  world  to 
drown  or  hang  themselves,  more  than  their  even  Chris 
tian.     Come,  my  spade.     There  is  no  ancient  gentlemen 
but  gardeners,  ditchers,  and  grave-makers :  they  hold  up 
Adam's  profession. 

2  Clo.  Was  he  a  gentleman  ? 

1  Clo.  He  was  the  first  that  ever  bore  arms. 

2  Clo.  Why,  he  had  none. 

1  Clo.  What,  art  a  heathen  ?     How  dost  thou  under 
stand    the    Scripture  ?      The    Scripture    says    "  Adam 
digged  :  "  could   he   dig  without  arms  ?      I  '11   put   an 
other  question   to  thee  :  if  thou  answerest  me  not  to 
the  purpose,  confess  thyself  — 

2  Clo.  Go  to. 

1  Clo.   What  is  he  that  builds  stronger  than  either  the 
mason,  the  shipwright,  or  the  carpenter? 

2  Clo.   The  gallows-maker ;  for  that  frame  outlives  a 
thousand  tenants. 

i  Clo.   I  like  thy  wit  well,  in  good  faith  ;  the  gallows 


Shakespeare's  Prose  79 

does  well ;  but  how  does  it  well  ?  it  does  well  to  those 
that  do  ill :  now  thou  dost  ill  to  say  the  gallows  is  built 
stronger  than  the  church  :  argal,  the  gallows  may  do 
well  to  thee.  To 't  again,  come. 

2  Clo.  "  Who  builds  stronger  than  a  mason,  a  ship 
wright,  or  a  carpenter  ?  " 

1  Clo.   Ay,  tell  me  that,  and  unyoke. 

2  Clo.   Marry,  now  I  can  tell. 

1  Clo.   To't. 

2  Clo.   Mass,  I  cannot  tell. 

Enter  HAMLET  and  HORATIO,  at  a  distance. 
i  Clo.   Cudgel  thy  brains  no  more  about  it,  for  your 
dull  ass  will  not  mend  his  pace  with  beating ;  and  when 
you  are  asked  this  question  next,  say  a  "  grave-maker : " 
the  houses  that  he  makes  last  till  doomsday.  .  .  . 

[Digs  and  sings. 

[  Throws  up  another  skull. 

Ham.  There  's  another ;  why  may  not  that  be  the 
skull  of  a  lawyer  ?  Where  be  his  quiddities  now,  his  quil 
lets,  his  cases,  his  tenures,  and  his  tricks  ?  why  does 
he  suffer  this  rude  knave  now  to  knock  him  about  the 
sconce  with  a  dirty  shovel,  and  will  not  tell  him  of  his 
action  of  battery  ?  Humph  !  This  fellow  might  be  in 's 
time  a  great  buyer  of  land,  with  his  statutes,  his  recog 
nizances,  his  fines,  his  double  vouchers,  his  recoveries ; 
is  this  the  fine  of  his  fines,  and  the  recovery  of  his  re 
coveries,  to  have  his  fine  pate  full  of  fine  dirt  ?  .  .  .  The 
very  conveyances  of  his  lands  will  hardly  lie  in  this  box ; 
and  must  the  inheritor  himself  have  no  more,  ha  ? 

But  soft !  but  soft !  aside  :  here  comes  the  King. 


80  Literature  and  Criticism 

Enter  Priests,  etc.,  in  procession  ;  the  Corpse  ^OPHELIA, 
LAERTES  and  Mourners  following;  KING,  QUEEN, 
their  trains,  etc. 

The  Queen,  the  courtiers:  who  is  that  they  follow? 

And  with  such  maimed  rites  ?    This  doth  betoken 

The  corse  they  follow  did  with  desperate  hand 

Fordo  it  own  life. 

And  thus  the  scene  goes  on  in  solemn  verse. 

It  is  easy  here  to  see  why  the  grave-diggers 
talk  in  prose.  Their  absurd  burlesque  of  logic 
and  wit  is  almost  as  far  removed  from  the 
sphere  of  ordinary  verse  as  lunacy  would  be. 
But  why  does  Hamlet  use  prose  ?  One  reason 
may  be  that  what  he  says  is  thrown  into  the 
midst  of  a  scene  which  is  already  going  on  in 
prose.  At  least  it  is  very  likely  that  a  part  of 
what  he  says,  if  occurring  in  a  versified  scene, 
would  have  taken  on  the  prevailing  form  of 
rhythm.  Yet  Shakespeare  does  not  hesitate 
to  change  the  form,  even  several  times  in  the 
midst  of  a  scene,  where  the  different  moods 
seem  to  require  it.  The  real  reason  for  Ham 
let's  prose  here  is,  I  believe,  that  it  is  his  mind 
that  is  speaking,  not  his  heart.  There  is  no 
deep  feeling  or  earnestness  of  purpose  in  what 
he  says.  It  is  rather  the  idle,  speculative,  half- 
humorous  play  of  a  mind  that  is  merely  wait 
ing  between  more  important  events.  Not  until 
the  stately  funeral  procession  comes  suddenly 


Shakespeare's  Prose  81 

in  sight,  solemnly  moving  toward  Ophelia's 
grave,  does  he  rouse  himself  from  this  transient 
mood,  and  the  deep  current  of  his  real  thought 
and  feeling  set  forward  again.  Then  he  imme 
diately  begins,  as  we  have  seen  above,  to  speak 
in  verse. 

But  the  end  of  the  play  draws  on  apace. 
The  mood  deepens  more  and  more.  There  is 
no  longer  any  prose,  or  any  room  for  prose, 
with  one  exception.  In  the  middle  of  Scene  2 
of  the  last  act,  Osric  enters,  and,  in  order  to 
bring  himself  to  the  level  of  this  pert  coxcomb, 
Hamlet  drops  from  the  sad  and  stately  rhythm 
of  his  thought  once  more  and  for  the  last  time. 

Brought  into  this  lighter  mood  by  the  pre 
sence  of  Osric,  he  continues  in  it  for  a  moment 
after  his  exit,  and  goes  on  speaking  in  prose  to 
Horatio  :  — 

If  or.   You  will  lose  this  wager,  my  lord. 

Ham.  I  do  not  think  so;  since  he  went  into  France, 
I  have  been  in  continual  practice ;  I  shall  win  at  the 
odds. 

So  much  of  his  reply  is  in  prose,  because  he 
is  speaking  merely  his  surface  thought  about 
the  wager.  But  in  the  midst  of  his  answer  his 
voice  falls  into  rhythmical  flow ;  the  heart  is 
speaking  now.  "  Sea  was  it,  yet  working  after 
storm,"  and  its  waves  beat  on  in  measured  rise 
and  fall :  — 


82  Literature  and  Criticism 

"  But  thou  wouldst 
Not  think  how  ill  all 's  here  about  my  heart." 

Then  stopping  abruptly,  he  breaks  the  rhythm 
with  a  phrase  in  prose,  just  as  the  idea  breaks 
the  flow  of  his  feeling  :  — 

But  it  is  no  matter. 
Hor.   Nay,  good  my  lord,  — 

Then  Hamlet  replies,  trying  to  turn  it  lightly, 
and  so  not  allowing  his  words  to  be  rhythmical 
and  earnest :  — 

It  is  but  foolery  ;  but  it  is  such  a  kind  of  gain-giving 
as  would  perhaps  trouble  a  woman. 

Hor.  If  your  mind  dislike  anything,  obey  it :  I  will 
forestall  their  repair  hither,  and  say  you  are  not  fit. 

Ham.  Not  a  whit ;  we  defy  augury  :  there  's  a  special 
providence  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow. 

Then  his  words  fall  into  verse  again,  as  the 
feeling  deepens  in  the  shadowy  presage  of 
death :  - 

If  it  be  now,  't  is  not  to  come  ;  if  it 

Be  not  to  come,  it  will  be  now ;  if  it 

Be  not  now,  yet  it  will  come  :  the  readiness 

Is  all.     Since  no  man  has  aught  of  what  he  leaves, 

What  is 't  to  leave  betimes  ? 

This  last  passage  is  always  printed  in  the 
form  of  prose.  I  have  given  it  as  above,  to 
show  how  rhythmical  it  is.  In  the  third  line 
from  the  end  if  "  it  will  "  be  read  "  't  will," 
and  in  the  next  line  "  man  has ''  be  read 


Shakespeare's  Prose  83 

"  man 's,"  the  passage  makes  perfect  metre. 
The  lines  might  be  broken  differently,  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

If  it  be  now,  't  is  not  to  come  ; 

If  it  be  not  to  come,  it  will  be  now ; 

If  it  be  not  now  ( — ),  yet  it  will  come  : 

The  readiness  is  all.     Since  no  man  (ha)s  aught 

Of  what  he  leaves,  what  is  't  to  leave  betimes  ? 

There  is  no  further  prose  in  "  Hamlet."  Sad 
and  strong,  the  current  of  the  verse  flows  on  to 
the  close. 

Let  us,  in  conclusion,  gather  up  some  of  the 
points  which  such  a  study  gives  us.  Verse  dif 
fers  from  prose  in  being,  in  the  broadest  sense 
of  the  word,  musical  or  harmonious.  It  is 
therefore  the  natural  form  of  expression  for 
emotion.  Wherever  a  scene  is  occupied  with 
mere  ideas,  it  is  in  prose,  changing  to  verse, 
if  at  all,  where  the  ideas  merge  into  feelings. 
On  the  other  hand,  any  entire  play  or  any  de 
tached  scene  which  is  full  of  intense  feeling  is 
in  verse,  changing  to  prose  only  where  emo 
tions  give  way  to  ideas,  whether  logical,  practi 
cal,  or  jocular.  Again,  verse,  and  especially 
so-called  blank  verse,  is  essentially  orderly 
and  coherent.  It  is  therefore  fitted  to  express 
only  emotion  which  is  under  the  control  of 
the  reason.  Whenever  it  passes  beyond,  into 
frenzy  or  madness,  it  must  cease  to  express  it- 


84  Literature  and  Criticism 

self  in  regular  verse,  just  as  music  has  no  voice 
for  passion  that  has  broken  its  banks  and  be 
come  a  destroying  deluge.  That  can  only  find 
(or  fail  in  seeking  to  find)  utterance  in  unmu 
sical  wailing  or  screams.  Rhythmical  harmony 
of  any  high  sort,  whether  that  of  Beethoven  or 
that  of  Shakespeare,  is  majestic  and  noble,  like 
the  orderly  sweep  of  planets  in  their  spheres, 
"still  quiring  to  the  young-eyed  cherubim."  It 
can  only  well  express,  therefore,  feeling  that  is 
noble,  or  that,  at  least,  through  its  power,  has 
some  element  of  nobility,  or  thought  that  is 
deep  and  strong  enough  to  carry  feeling  with 
it.  Clowns  and  jesters  and  drunken  men  and 
the  trivial  business  of  every-day  life  get  ex 
pressed  in  prose.  So  does  wit,  however  refined. 
So  does  pleasure,  unless  it  be  the  deep  joy  of 
love  or  death,  that  lies  so  close  to  pain. 

Doubtless  prose  scenes  are  often  thrown  into 
the  drama  for  the  sake  of  relieving  the  strain 
on  the  feelings  which  the  tragical  action  or 
passion  has  caused.  The  capacity  for  deep 
feeling  must  be  renewed  at  intervals  by  breath 
ing  spaces  of  a  lighter  tone.  But  the  nature 
of  the  scene  is  what  is  chosen  for  this  purpose, 
not  the  prose  or  verse  form  of  its  expression  ; 
this  is  always  self-determined  and  never  open 
to  choice. 

Shakespeare's  prose  is  wonderfully  natural. 


Shakespeare's  Prose  85 

Though  written  for  the  stage,  it  seems  real  life ; 
not  like  the  modern  novelist's  real-life  prose, 
which  always  seems  written  for  the  stage. 
What  novels  he  would  have  written,  with  what 
delicious  subtlety  of  humor,  with  what  shrewd 
insight  of  observation  he  would  have  portrayed 
the  lower  world  of  ideas  and  characteristics, 
had  he  not  chosen  to  depict  that  higher  world 
of  passion  and  character.  His  prose  would 
have  given  us,  beyond  any  of  the  novelists  or 
historians,  charming  pictures  of  what  men  think 
and  do  ;  but  it  is  fortunate  for  us  that  he  chose 
rather  to  give  us  in  verse,  beyond  any  of  the 
other  poets,  the  perfect  expression  of  what  men 
feel  and  are. 


AN   IMPRESSION   OF   BALZAC 

WHEN  a  man  comes  into  the  world  endowed 
with  vigorous  perception,  a  retentive  memory, 
and  that  species  of  imagination  which  is  only  a 
potpourri  of  memories,  made  grotesque  and 
fantastic  by  their  incongruous  intermixture,  it 
is  a  matter  of  the  merest  accident  what  he  will 
write  ;  or  whether  he  will  write  on  paper,  or  on 
canvas  with  a  brush.  Dickens  might  have  been 
Dore',  and  Dore*  Dickens.  It  is  even  true  of 
the  greatest  artists  to  a  certain  extent.  Michael 
Angelo  "  relished  versing ;  "  Dante  was  inter 
rupted  at  the  easel  by  his  "  persons  of  impor 
tance  ; "  Milton  might  never  have  returned  to 
poetry  but  for  the  failure  of  the  Good  Old 
Cause;  and  Shakespeare  would  have  written 
great  novels  if  any  such  invention  had  been 
known  in  his  day.  When  a  powerfully  en 
dowed  man,  such  as  Balzac  certainly  was,  with 
all  his  limitations,  does  chance  to  spend  a  life 
time  in  writing  fiction,  and,  moreover,  without 
the  accident  of  any  immediate  popularity  of 
one  volume  or  another  to  determine  the  par 
ticular  form  or  quality  of  his  work,  so  that  he 


An  Impression  of  Balzac  87 

continues  to  pour  out  a  flood  of  all  manner  of 
fiction,  —  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  clean  and 
unclean,  romantic  and  realistic,  —  it  is  like  char 
acterizing  the  surface  of  the  globe  to  charac 
terize  his  productions.  His  mind  was  a  great 
mirror,  —  not  without  its  cracks  and  blurs,  — 
and  it  imaged  the  whole  phantasmagoria  of 
superficially  seen  objects  and  events.  The 
forty  volumes  of  his  "  Come'die  Humaine  "  he 
well  denominates  Scenes;  they  are  scenes  in 
provincial  life,  in  Parisian  life,  in  military  life, 
in  political  life,  —  everywhere,  except  in  the 
real  and  true  human  life  universal.  Balzac  is 
at  the  other  extreme  of  evolution  from  those 
creatures  over  whose  whole  surface  some  dim, 
undifferentiated  sense  of  sight  is  diffused.  In 
him  the  visual  sense  has  not  only  become  con 
centrated  and  distinct,  but  it  has  absorbed  all 
the  other  powers.  He  is  all  eye.  "  Penser, 
c'est  voir  /"  he  makes  Louis  Lambert  exclaim. 
The  phrase  explains  all  the  excellence  of  Bal 
zac's  method,  at  the  same  time  that  it  pro 
nounces  its  sentence  of  final  inadequacy.  "  To 
think  "  is  indeed  "  to  see  ;  "  only  there  must 
be  not  only  sight,  but  insight.  Merely  to 
"watch," 

"  When  Observation  is  not  sympathy," 
may  give  apprehension,  but  not   comprehen- 


88  Literature  and  Criticism 

sion.  The  great  retinas  of  the  ox  and  owl  see, 
and  do  not  see.  "  Louis  Lambert  "  itself  illus 
trates  Balzac's  greatness  and  his  weakness.  It 
begins  as  a  vivid  photograph,  and  ends  in 
grandiloquent  fog.  His  longer  stories  remind 
one  of  the  advertisement  of  some  modern  play 
"  in  five  acts  and  nineteen  tableaux."  They  are 
all  in  one  act  and  a  thousand  tableaux.  Some 
times  they  show  a  temporary  grasp  of  true  con 
structive  genius,  but  oftener  it  is  a  tedious  be 
wilderment  of  jostling  forms.  A  rapid  survey 
of  his  works  in  memory  gives  us  the  impression 
of  a  great  theatre  seen  behind  the  curtain  after 
the  ruin  and  confusion  of  a  partial  conflagra 
tion.  A  multitude  of  dramatic  "  effects  "  are 
piled  together,  — shreds  of  costume,  tinsel  but 
vividly  glittering,  broken  clumps  of  highly  col 
ored  wooden  landscape,  comic  and  tragic  ap 
purtenances,  stage  swords  and  stage  blood- 
clots,  a  whole  imaginative  world  gone  back  to 
chaos,  —  but  nothing  consecutive  or  true  to 
reality. 

"  Le  Pere  Goriot"  is  a  novel  of  caricature. 
Its  characters  are  no  more  possible  than  those 
of  Dickens,  and  yet  not  less  probable.  No 
mere  puppets,  constructed  by  inexperience  and 
lack  of  observation,  they  all  move  and  speak 
most  humanly,  for  every  separate  trait  is  a 
quick  transcript  of  some  detached  bit  of  ob- 


An  Impression  of  Balzac  89 

served  life.  Yet  they  are  not  real.  It  is  not 
likely  that  any  one  ever  finds  himself,  with 
sudden  dismay  of  conscience,  in  Balzac's  mir 
ror,  as  he  constantly  does  in  that  of  Thackeray 
or  George  Eliot.  His  characters  are  full  of 
visible  human  mechanism,  but  they  lack  those 
mainsprings  of  motive  such  as  we  find  in  our 
selves.  "  Le  Pere  Goriot  "  is  a  painful  story. 
It  has  that  test  of  a  fundamentally  worthless 
book,  —  it  leaves  a  man  sadder  without  leaving 
him  wiser.  The  hero  is  a  vulgar  King  Lear. 
Feeble-mindedness  in  him  replaces  madness, 
and  the  disagreeable  replaces  the  sublime. 
Balzac  is,  however,  as  different  from  those  few 
merely  brutal  Parisians  of  to-day  who  unfortu 
nately  represent  French  literature  to  the  igno 
rance  of  so  many  Americans,  as  soul  is  from 
flesh.  He  differs  from  them  as  being  a  man  of 
intellect.  But,  like  them,  he  seems  to  paint 
pain  not  because  he  pities  it  but  because  he  is 
coolly  interested  in  it.  The  reader  sits  as  at  a 
bull-fight  or  a  Christian  martyrdom ;  and  if  he 
is  entertained,  he  may  as  well  confess  to  him 
self  that  it  is  because  civilization  has  not  yet 
succeeded  in  completely  extirpating  the  nerve 
of  ferocious  enjoyment  of  pain.  The  whole- 
souled  admirer  of  Balzac  may  find  the  psycho 
logical  explanation  of  his  interest  in  certain 
passages  not  far  off  from  that  of  the  audience 


90  Literature  and  Criticism 

which  likes  those  war  lectures  and  articles  best 
that  describe  the  most  "  mowing  down "  of 
ranks  and  general  preparation  for  surgery.  It 
is,  in  either  case,  a  poignant  and  brutal  enjoy 
ment,  however  popular  an  one,  and  vulgar 
enough,  if  we  venture  to  subject  it  to  cold 
analysis. 

The  "  Duchesse  de  Langeais  "  is  a  tedious 
tale,  as  if  told  after  dinner  by  a  guest  who  for 
the  most  part  drowses,  but  occasionally  rouses 
himself  to  startling  power.  Few  things  of 
Balzac's  illustrate  better  how  his  narrative 
facility  gets  the  better  of  him.  It  runs  on  and 
runs  on.  It  is  with  him  as  Henry  Taylor  said 
of  Macaulay,  "his  memory  swamps  his  mind." 
The  story  is,  in  reality,  all  told  in  the  prelude 
of  the  convent  scene.  A  greater  artist,  with  a 
Shakespearean  sense  of  plot  interest  or  a  deeper 
mind,  with  a  more  profound  sense  of  the  intol- 
erableness  of  tears  and  wounds  unrelieved  by 
some  onlooking  hope,  would  never  have  gone 
back  from  that  beginning  to  gloat  over  the  woes 
that  lead  up  to  the  final  woe.  It  is  as  if  the 
novelist  played  with  his  characters  —  doomed 
and  plainly  declared  to  be  doomed  —  as  a  cat 
plays  with  a  half-dead  mouse. 

The  stories  and  sketches  so  far  translated 
are  well  enough  chosen  to  give  bits  of  all  sorts 
of  Balzac's  writing,  —  all,  at  least,  that  would 


An  Impression  of  Balzac  91 

bear  this  climate.  They  are  never  vicious,  but 
there  is  a  tolerably  frank  animalism  in  the 
point  of  view.  The  motives  and  qualities  por 
trayed  are  not  such  as  interest  the  best  of  us 
in  each  other.  It  is  always  man  and  woman 
seen  closely  and  depicted  strenuously,  but  seen 
only  skin-deep,  —  and  to  that  depth  we  are 
still  the  primitive  animal.  The  sketch,  "A 
Passion  in  the  Desert,"  represents  Balzac  at 
his  best.  Nothing  could  be  more  perfect  than 
these  pictures. 

The  sudden  birth  of  an  interest  in  Balzac  in 
this  country  is  symptomatic  of  several  things. 
In  the  first  place,  like  the  recent  interest  in 
Russian  literature,  it  denotes  a  commendable 
aspiration  to  reach  out  beyond  our  own  pro 
vincial  horizon,  and  to  learn  what  it  is  that 
other  races  and  temperaments  admire.  Fur 
thermore,  it  indicates  a  partial  reaction  from 
the  too-easy  accepted  delusion  that  all  French 
literature  is  highly  objectionable,  and  espe 
cially  all  realistic  French  novels.  But  the  in 
terest  in  Balzac,  particularly,  suggests  above 
all  the  suspicion  that  our  civilization  —  and 
shall  we  say  peculiarly  that  of  the  region  from 
which  this  series  of  translations  emanates  ?  — 
has  reached  the  stage  of  profound  ennui.  The 
mind  that  craves  the  endless  narratives  of  Bal 
zac  must  be,  if  not  individually  ennuye,  at  least 


92  Literature  and  Criticism 

the  product  of  a  society  that  is  so.  It  is  only 
when  one  has  lost  the  vigorous  freshness  of  an 
interest  in  real  life,  as  it  actually  lies  throbbing 
about  him,  that  such  fiction  can  greatly  prosper 
with  him.  Yet  it  is  something  gained  if  weari 
ness  with  the  near  ends  in  aspiration  for  the 
distant ;  and,  once  out  of  one's  petty  province, 
one  may  chance  to  go  very  far. 


THREE   SONNETS 

A  LITERARY  friend  of  mine,  who  is  a  little 
irritable  and  subject  to  attacks  of  extreme 
views,  has  made  a  rather  late  discovery  of  the 
fine  qualities  of  modern  French  literature.  Ac 
cordingly,  in  order  to  be  well  off  with  the  old 
love  before  being  on  with  the  new,  he  has  taken 
to  reviling  the  German.  How  many  people, 
he  wants  to  know,  have  gone  to  the  study  of 
German  because  of  the  alluring  tradition  that 
Carlyle  was  to  "find  what  he  wanted  there  "  ? 
And  of  the  number  how  many  have  come  to 
make  the  reflection  that  if,  indeed,  he  found  it 
he  must  have  taken  it  all  away  with  him  ?  The 
trouble  is,  perhaps,  that  my  friend  went  to  the 
Germans  for  imaginative  literature.  And  now 
he  finds  their  literature  essentially  unpoetic. 
Their  fiction,  he  says,  is  diffuse  and  tedious.  In 
his  worst  moments  he  insists  that  their  poetry 
is  dull.  At  first  attractive,  the  monotonous 
canter  or  jog-trot  of  its  metres  becomes  weari 
some,  with  the  noisy  click  and  clank  of  their 
consonant-encumbered  rhymes.  Moreover,  it 
is  always  Blumen  and  Blumen,  and  never  any 


94  Literature  ami  Criticism 

particular  species  of  flower  j  always  Duft  and 
Luft,  Klagen  and  Schlagen,  Hcrz  and  Schmerz, 
and  never  any  specific  variety  of  sound  or  color 
or  feeling.  It  is  as  if  only  the  commonest  as 
pects  of  nature  or  life  had  ever  been  appre 
hended,  and  these  few  meagre  "  properties " 
had  been  handed  on  from  one  poet  to  another 
as  perpetual  heirlooms.  This  is,  no  doubt,  the 
exaggerated  view  of  a  late  convert  to  another 
cultus.  Yet  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  is  charmed 
with  the  recent  school  of  French  poets.  How 
delicate,  how  subtile,  how  opalescent,  with  all 
manner  of  vanishing  gleams  of  beauty,  natural 
and  spiritual,  seems  this  poetry,  compared  with 
that  of  their  more  heavily  moulded  neighbors  ! 
The  sonnets  of  Sully  Prudhomme,  for  exam 
ple,  —  it  is  impossible  to  translate  them  ;  tint 
and  perfume  have  vanished  from  the  pressed 
flower.  But  one  is  possessed  to  attempt  it,  as 
in  the  three  sonnets  offered  here  :  — 

SIESTE 

Je  passerai  1'ete  dans  1'herbe,  sur  le  dos, 

La  nuque  dans  les  mains,  les  paupieres  mi-closes, 

Sans  meler  un  soupir  &  1'haleine  des  roses, 

Ni  troubler  le  sommeil  leger  des  clairs  echos ; 

Sans  peur  je  livrerai  mon  sang,  ma  chair,  mes  os, 
Mon  6tre,  au  cours  de  1'heure  et  des  metamorphoses, 
Calme,  et  laissant  la  foule  innombrable  des  causes 
Dans  1'ordre  universel  assurer  mon  repos  ; 


Three  Sonnets  95 

Sous  le  pavilion  d'or  que  le  soleil  deploie, 
Mes  yeux  boiront  Tether,  dont  1'immuable  joie 
Filtrera  dans  mon  ame  au  travers  de  mes  cils, 

Et  je  dirai,  songeant  aux  hommes  :  "  Que  font-ils  ?n 
Et  le  ressouvenir  des  amours  et  des  haines 
Me  bercera,  pareil  au  bruit  des  mers  lointaines. 


SIESTA 

All  summer  let  me  lie  along  the  grass, 
Hands  under  head,  and  lids  that  almost  close ; 
Nor  mix  a  sigh  with  breathings  of  the  rose, 
Nor  vex  light-sleeping  echo  with  "  Alas  !  " 

Fearless,  I  will  abandon  blood,  and  limb, 
And  very  soul  to  the  all-changing  hours ; 
In  calmness  letting  the  unnumbered  powers 
Of  nature  weave  my  rest  into  their  hymn. 

Beneath  the  sunshine's  golden  tent  uplift 
Mine  eyes  shall  watch  the  upper  blue  unfurled, 
Till  its  deep  joy  into  my  heart  shall  sift 

Through  lashes  linked ;  and,  dreaming  on  the  world, 
Its  love  and  hate,  or  memories  far  of  these, 
Shall  lull  me  like  the  sound  of  distant  seas. 


ETHER 

Quand  on  est  sur  la  terre  etendu  sans  bouger, 
Le  ciel  parait  plus  haut,  sa  splendeur  plus  sereine  ; 
On  aime  £  voir,  au  gre  d'une  insensible  haleine, 
Dans  1'air  sublime  fuir  un  nuage  leger ; 


96  Literature  and  Criticism 

II  est  tout  ce  qu'on  veut :  la  neige  d'un  verger, 
Un  archange  qui  plane,  une  echarpe  qui  traine, 
Ou  le  lait  bouillonnant  d'une  coupe  trop  pleine; 
On  le  voit  different  sans  1'avoir  vu  changer. 

Puis  un  vague  lambeau  lentement  s'en  detache, 
S'efface,  puis  un  autre,  et  1'azur  luit  sans  tache, 
Plus  vif,  comme  1'acier  qu'un  souffle  avail  terni. 

Tel  change  incessament  mon  etre  avec  mon  age ; 
Je  ne  suis  qu'un  soupir  animant  un  nuage, 
Et  je  vais  disparaitre,  epars  dans  1'infini. 


THE   CLOUD 

Couched  on  the  turf,  and  lying  mute  and  still, 
While  the  deep  heaven  lifts  higher  and  more  pure, 
I  love  to  watch,  as  if  some  hidden  lure 
It  followed,  one  light  cloud  above  the  hill. 

The  flitting  film  takes  many  an  aspect  strange : 
An  orchard's  snow ;  a  far-off,  sunlit  sail ; 
A  fleck  of  foam  ;  a  seraph's  floating  veil. 
We  see  it  altered,  never  see  it  change. 

Now  a  soft  shred  detaches,  fades  from  sight ; 

Another  comes,  melts,  and  the  blue  is  clear 

And  clearer,  as  when  breath  has  dimmed  the  steel 

Such  is  my  changeful  spirit,  year  by  year : 
A  sigh,  the  soul  of  such  a  cloud,  as  light 
And  vanishing,  lost  in  the  infinite. 


Three  Sonnets  97 


DE  LOIN 

Du  bonheur  qu'ils  revaient  toujours  pur  et  nouveau 
Les  couples  exauces  ne  jouissent  qu'une  heure. 
Moins  emu  leur  baiser  ne  sourit  ni  ne  pleure ; 
Le  nid  de  leur  tendresse  endevient  le  tombeau. 

Puisque  1'ceil  assouvi  se  fatigue  du  beau, 
Que  la  levre  en  jurant  un  long  culte  se  leurre, 
Que  des  printemps  d'amour  le  lis  des  qu'on  1'effleure, 
Ou  vont  les  autres  lis  va  lambeau  par  lambeau, 

J'accepte  le  tourment  de  vivre  eloigne  d'elle. 
Mon  homage  muet,  mais  aussi  plus  fidele, 
D'aucue  lassitude  en  mon  coeur  n'est  puni ; 

Posant  sur  sa  beaute  mon  respect  comme  un  voile 
Je  1'aime  sans  desir,  comme  on  aime  une  etoile, 
Avec  le  sentiment  qu'elle  est  a  I'infini. 


IN    SEPARATION 

The  bliss  that  happy  lovers  dream  will  bloom 
Forever  new  shall  scarce  outlast  the  year : 
Their  calmer  kisses  wake  nor  smile  nor  tear ; 
Love's  nesting-place  already  is  its  tomb. 

Since  sated  eyes  grow  weary  of  their  prey, 
And  constant  vows  their  own  best  hopes  betray, 
And  love's  June  lily,  marred  but  by  a  breath, 
Falls  where  the  other  lilies  lie  in  death, 


98  Literature  and  Criticism 

Therefore  the  doom  of  land  and  sea  that  bar 
My  life  from  hers  I  do  accept.     At  least 
No  passion  will  rise  jaded  from  the  feast, 

My  pure  respect  no  passing  fires  can  stain ; 
So  without  hope  I  love  her,  without  pain, 
Without  desire,  as  one  might  love  a  star. 


THE   CHARMS   OF   SIMILITUDE 

IT  is  surprising  what  a  pleasure  we  take  in 
an  apt  similitude.  Not  only  does  it  enter 
largely  into  our  enjoyment  of  poetry,  but  it 
gives  zest  to  all  bright  colloquial  talk.  The 
voluble  centre  of  any  group  of  listeners  —  on 
the  street  or  in  the  drawing-room  —  is  sure  to 
be  heard  spicing  his  narration  with  the  "  like  " 
and  "  as  "  of  the  frequent  simile.  If  I  were  a 
novelist  (as  I  do  not  at  all  thank  Heaven  I  am 
not)  I  would  keep  lists  of  good  similitudes; 
not  only  those  of  my  own  invention,  —  which  I 
should  not  expect  to  be  prosperous,  —  but 
those  picked  up  by  the  wayside  in  actual 
speech.  It  is  not  so  much  that  they  adorn  the 
expression  of  thought  as  that  they  illuminate 
it.  Or  if  they  adorn,  it  is  as  the  modern  jew 
elry,  set  with  the  electric  spark.  It  used  to  be 
supposed  that  in  poetry,  for  instance,  figures  of 
speech  were  for  mere  ornamentation.  Now  we 
know  that  in  good  poetry  they  are  chiefly  used 
for  throwing  light.  So  in  colloquial  speech  :  the 
reason  we  enjoy  them  seems  to  be  that  they  hit 
out  the  idea  like  a  flash.  There  is  nothing  the 


100          Literature  and  Criticism 

mind  enjoys,  after  all,  like  getting  an  idea  and 
getting  it  quick,  —  which  is  only  giving  in  a  nut 
shell  the  gist  of  Herbert  Spencer's  admirable 
essay  on  Style.  A  friend  was  telling  me  the 
other  day  that  he  had  a  new  cook.  He  said  (he 
is  a  small  man),  k<  I  am  afraid  of  her.  She  is 
as  big  as  a  bonded  warehouse."  I  saw  in  the 
paper  lately  that  somebody  expressed  himself 
as  being  "  dry  as  a  covered  bridge.''  And  how 
can  we  declare  the  fineness  of  anything  so 
well  as  by  saying  it  is  "  fine  as  a  fiddle  "  ?  The 
alliteration,  no  doubt,  helps,  but  it  does  not 
count  for  very  much.  You  could  not  substi 
tute  fish  or  feather  or  fife  or  flamingo  though 
each  is  fine  after  a  fashion.  Nothing  will 
serve  but  the  "fiddle,"  with  its  preternatural 
shine  of  varnish,  its  perky  angles  and  curves, 
—  pointed  like  a  saucy  nose,  —  with  perhaps 
(but  this  is  venturing  into  deep  psychological 
water)  a  suggestion,  sub-conscious,  of  the  jaunty 
fiddler  with  his  airs  and  graces,  dressed  as  if 
just  out  of  a  bandbox.  "  Lively  as  a  flea " 
seems  good  and  lively,  but  an  old  sea-captain 
of  mine  used  to  say  "he  flew  around  like  a  flea 
in  a  hot  skillet."  "  Like  a  bumblebee  in  a 
bass  drum  "  describes  the  activity  of  a  different 
sort  of  temperament. 

Why  would  it  not  make  a  pleasant  occupa 
tion  for  a  rainy  day  ("  wet-weather  work,"  as  Ik 


The  Charms  of  Similitude         101 

Marvel  would  phrase  it)  to  collect  what  seem 
to  us  the  most  beautiful  similitudes  of  our 
favorite  poets  ?  If,  for  instance,  we  were  quot 
ing  from  Longfellow,  perhaps  it  would  be  :  — 

"  When  she  had  passed  it  seemed  like  the  ceasing  of 
exquisite  music." 

If  from  Shelley,  it  might  be  :  — 

"  And  multitudes  of  dense,  white,  fleecy  clouds 
Were  wandering  in  thick  flocks  along  the  mountains, 
Shepherded  by  the  slow,  unwilling  wind." 

If  from  Matthew  Arnold,  it  might  be  the  close 
of  that  beautiful  ebb  and  flow  of  rhythmical 
meditation,  "  Dover  Beach  :  "  — 

"  And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain, 
Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night." 

If  Browning,  would  it  be  his  "  Last  Words," 
with  their  likening  of  the  seen-unseen  Beloved 
to  the  thither  side  of  the  moon  ? 

I  would  like  the  liberty  of  imparting  to  the 
Contributors'  Club  an  odd  thing  that  has  hap 
pened  to  me ;  though  it  may  be,  for  aught  I 
know,  a  common  experience.  I  began,  when 
a  boy,  to  keep  an  index  rerum.  It  never  got 
farther  than  a  beautifully  arranged  table  of 
contents,  and  a  few  scattering  entries  made 
while  the  volume  had  the  nutritious  fragrance 


102  Literature  and  Criticism 

of  the  bindery  still  upon  it.  Among  these 
entries,  on  a  page  headed  Similitudes,  are  two 
similes,  in  very  yellow  ink.  Now  the  interest 
ing  point  is  that  I  have  totally  forgotten  whether 
they  were  original  or  selected.  I  hope  they  were 
my  own ;  but  they  sound  more  as  if  they  might 
have  come  from  Longfellow's  "  Hyperion,"  or 
from  some  Conversation  of  Lander's.  It  may 
be  that  every  schoolboy  (except  myself)  will  re 
cognize  and  locate  them,  and  that  some  lively 
contributor  will  treat  me  with  cold  sarcasm,  at 
some  future  sitting  of  the  Club,  for  my  igno 
rance.  Here  they  are  :  — 

"This  earthly  life  is  like  an  album  at  an 
inn  :  we  turn  over  its  pages  curiously  or  wearily, 
and  write  a  scrap  of  wisdom  or  of  folly,  and 
away." 

"  He  who  has  loved  and  served  an  art  is  like 
the  child  that  was  nursed  by  Persephone  :  he  is 
not  subject  to  the  woes  of  other  men,  for  he 
has  lain  in  the  lap  and  on  the  bosom  of  a 
goddess.'' 


BOOKS   OF   REFUGE 

"  UP  to  forty,"  says  the  adage,  "  a  man  seeks 
pleasure  ;  after  forty  he  shuns  pain."  How 
ever  this  may  be  as  to  exact  ages,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that,  as  we  get  on  in  life,  we  come  to 
value  things  not  merely  as  they  promise  some 
increment  of  positive  enjoyment,  but  as  they 
fortify  the  spirit  against  positive  suffering.  In 
one's  relations  to  literature,  for  instance,  cer 
tain  books  acquire  a  greater  and  greater  value 
in  that  they  provide  a  harbor  of  refuge  when 
the  mind's  barometer  begins  to  fall,  and  one's 
moods  are  overcast  and  threatening. 

There  really  are  three  pretty  distinct  classes 
of  books  having  this  peculiar  value ;  and  it 
becomes,  at  times,  a  nice  question  of  spiritual 
practice  which  of  the  three  sorts  of  remedy  is 
to  be,  as  the  old  doctors  used  to  say,  "  exhib 
ited." 

To  begin  with,  there  is  a  class  of  writings 
that  are  good  for  nothing  else  but  pour  passer 
le  temps,  f  For  this  purpose,  however  (and  it 
may  happen  to  be,  in  certain  crises,  the  most 
important  purpose  in  the  world  to  us),  they  are 


104  Literature  and  Criticism 

invaluable.  They  have  precisely  the  opposite 
effect  to  that  which  the  author  of  "  Friends  in 
Council "  attributes  to  tobacco.  The  lighted 
pipe,  he  says,  serves  to  arrest  and  make  tan 
gible  the  passing  moment.  It  applies  the  air 
brake  to  the  wheels  of  Time,  and  enables  us  to 
discern  the  distinct  outlines  of  that  Present 
which  otherwise  —  so  rapidly  and  incessantly 
does  it  rush  from  being  Future  to  having  be 
come  Past  —  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  for 
us  at  all.  It  does  that  which  the  Autocrat  used 
to  imagine  as  being  done  to  the  whizzing  mind- 
machinery,  —  sticks  a  lever  in  among  the  cogs, 
and  brings  them,  for  once,  to  a  standstill. 
Now  the  kind  of  literature  of  which  I  speak 
has,  I  say,  the  precisely  opposite  effect.  It  so 
quickens  the  flight  of  time  as  to  obliterate  the 
present  moment,  with  all  its  "  gain-giving,"  its 
remorse,  its  too  acute  memory  of  personal  mor 
tification,  its  thickening  Brocken  shadow  of 
one's  own  unprofitableness,  of  whatever  sort. 
Such  books,  as  if  to  help  us  make  doubly  sure 
of  escaping  the  clutches  of  Faust's  evil  one,  go 
to  the  other  extreme  from  the  utterance  that 
was  to  signal  his  diabolic  seizure,  "  Stay,  fleet 
ing  moment,  thou  art  so  fair  !  "  and  say,  in 
stead,  "  Fly,  lagging  moments,  ye  are  so  foul !  " 
Perhaps  no  one  is  so  constantly  merry  as  not 
to  need,  on  occasion,  such  pass  -  the  -  times. 


Books  of  Refuge  105 

Each  will  have  his  own  volumes  for  such  a 
purpose,  according  to  temperament  and  taste. 
To  one,  the  book  of  travel  will  be  the  most 
effective.  To  another,  the  chain  of  a  plot  in 
terest  is  necessary  to  hold  the  mind  away  from 
its  own  infelicities  ;  and  the  novel  of  adven 
ture,  like  Reade's  or  Black's  or  Clarke  Rus 
sell's,  or  the  novel  of  caricature,  like  Dickens's, 
will  be  best.  To  another,  it  will  be  some  vol 
ume  of  the  old  ballads  or  romances,  or  Chau 
cer,  or  the  lighter  plays  of  Shakespeare.  To 
still  another,  the  very  best  distraction  will  be 
some  work  of  natural  science,  potent  to  draw 
the  mind  away  not  only  from  its  own  cares  and 
moods,  but  from  the  whole  region  of  human 
complexities,  into  the  colorless  air  of  material 
things,  that  "  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin  ;  " 
that  "neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mar 
riage  ; "  that  are  as  remote  from  the  pain  of 
excessive  joy  as  from  that  of  excessive  woe. 
But  perhaps  the  best  resource  for  the  average 
man  is  to  be  found  in  the  light  literature  of  the 
French  ;  especially  if  one  does  not  know  the 
tongue  so  perfectly  as  to  destroy  the  additional 
interest  that  always  comes  from  making  one's 
way  in  a  foreign  language,  where  a  little  ex 
citement  of  conjecture  attends  the  accurate 
valuation  of  here  and  there  a  word.  The  nov 
els  of  the  elder  Dumas,  for  example,  —  how 


106  Literature  and  Criticism 

lightly  they  fillip  the  slow-jogging  hours  of  a 
dull  evening,  and  with  what  abandon  one  may 
lie  back,  so  to  speak,  on  the  virile  author's  secure 
mastery  of  the  planetary  and  cometary  orbits  of 
his  always  impossible  but  never  improbable 
characters !  The  Elizabethan  dramatists  are 
great  for  this  purpose  of  rescuing  a  man  from 
himself.  It  is  but  to  take  five  steps  to  the 
bookcase,  to  single  out  and  open  a  volume,  and 
presto,  change !  We  are  in  a  world  that  has 
this,  among  its  other  great  advantages  over  our 
own  :  that  the  reader  cannot  possibly  encoun 
ter  himself  as  one  of  its  habitants.  There  are 
times,  after  some  exhausting  mental  effort,  for 
instance,  —  as  the  writing  of  three  pages  be 
yond  our  proper  stent,  or  the  delivery  of  a  lec 
ture  in  a  hall  where  one  could  not  be  heard 
back  of  about  the  third  row  of  benches,  or  the 
reception  of  a  call  from  some  Intellectual  Young 
Person  who  became  paralytically  fastened  to 
the  door-knob,  —  when  one  is  left  very  much 
in  the  condition  of  Grandfather  Smallweed 
after  his  discharge  of  the  pillow  at  his  fireside 
companion.  At  such  times,  all  that  one  re 
quires  is  to  be  shaken  up  and  taken  out  of 
himself  for  a  change  of  view  ;  it  hardly  matters 
in  what  direction.  Then  Shakespeare  is  one's 
most  priceless  friend. 

A  second  species  of  books  of  refuge  is  that 


Books  of  Refuge  107 

sort  which  fortify  us  against  our  "  bad  quarter- 
hours,"  by  bracing  up  our  own  moral  tone  or 
our  philosophical  heroism.  They  are  not  so 
much  remedies  for  the  present  attack,  perhaps, 
as  preventives  of  such  in  the  future.  They  are 
the  books  which  make  a  man  ashamed  of  car 
ing  too  much  whether  he  be  happy  or  not  ; 
which  present  anew  the  higher  aims  and  better 
estimates  of  life.  Such  are  the  ruminations  of 
the  old  Stoics,  and  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  and  the 
"  Conduct  of  Life,"  and  Wordsworth,  and  the 
later  poetry  of  Longfellow,  and  the  great  auto 
biographies. 

But  there  is  still  a  third  class,  in  some  re 
spects  the  most  valuable  of  all.  I  mean  the 
books  that  by  their  mere  largeness  of  scope, 
make  all  our  own  haps  and  mishaps,  and  states 
of  mind  or  of  fortune,  dwindle  to  insignificance. 
Their  voice  appeals  every  case  from  die  kleine 
to  die  grosse  welt.  Their  motives  and  judg 
ments  are  no  longer  those  of  our  lehrjahre,  but 
those  of  our  wanderjahre.  If,  in  French  litera 
ture,  Dumas  represents  the  pass-the-time  spe 
cies,  George  Sand  may  be  taken  as  representa 
tive  of  this  self-obliterating  species.  Such  also 
is  Turgenieff,  and  such  is  Goethe.  Of  our 
English  writers,  George  Eliot  belongs  to  this 
class,  and  Landor,  and  the  great  historians, 
and  Browning,  and,  again,  Shakespeare  in  his 


108  Literature  and  Criticism 

deeper  dramas.  For  all  these  are  writers  who 
see  the  world  so  large,  and  feel  life  so  deep 
and  full,  that  from  their  plane  we  watch  only 
the  rolling  globe,  and  see  not  at  all  our  own 
little  diminished  speck  of  a  personality. 


THE  MOST  PATHETIC   FIGURE  IN 
STORY 

THE  inquiry  has  sometimes  suggested  itself 
to  me,  What  is  the  most  pathetic  figure  in  story  ? 
When  I  was  a  boy,  the  fate  of  Evangeline  the 
Acadian  always  seemed  to  me  the  most  pit 
eous  of  all  that  I  had  ever  known.  Not  so 
much  at  the  end,  —  the  woefulness  of  that  find 
ing  of  her  lover  too  late  did  not  impress  me  so 
much  till  those  words  had  taken  on  their  deeper 
meaning  from  the  experience  of  life ;  but  the 
perpetual  disappointment,  the  hope,  not  crushed 
and  ended,  but  continually  revived,  only  to  be 
the  "hope  deferred  that  maketh  the  heart 
sick,"  —  this  seemed  to  me  the  "pity  of  it." 
Most  poignant  of  all  appeared  that  moment  in 
the  story,  when,  as  Longfellow  tells  it,  — 

"  Nearer,  ever  nearer,  among  the  numberless  islands, 
Darted  a  light,  swift  boat,  that  sped  away  o'er  the 
water. 

Gabriel  was  it,  who,  weary  with  waiting,  unhappy  and 

restless, 
Sought  in  the  Western  wilds  oblivion  of  self  and  of 

sorrow. 


110          Literature  and  Criticism 

Swiftly  they  glided  along,  close  under  the  lee  of  the 
island, 

But  by  the  opposite  bank,  and  behind  a  screen  of  pal 
mettos, 

So  that  they  saw  not  the  boat,  where  it  lay  concealed 
in  the  willows. 

All  undisturbed  by  the  dash  of  their  oars,  and  unseen, 
were  the  sleepers ; 

Angel  of  God,  was  there  none  to  awaken  the  slumber 
ing  maiden  ? 

Swiftly  they  glided  away,  like  the  shade  of  a  cloud  on 
the  prairie. 

After  the  sound  of  their  oars  on  the  tholes  had  died 
in  the  distance, 

As  from  a  magic  trance  the  sleepers  awoke,  and  the 
maiden 

Said  with  a  sigh  to  the  friendly  priest,  'O  Father 
Felician  ! 

Something  says  in  my  heart  that  near  me  Gabriel 
wanders. 

Is  it  a  foolish  dream,  an  idle  and  vague  superstition  ? 

Or  has  an  angel  passed,  and  revealed  the  truth  to  my 
spirit  ? '  " 

In  after  years,  when  this  tale  of  the  Acadian 
exiles  had  lost  something  of  its  pathos  through 
mere  familiarity,  I  read  Chaucer's  story  of 
"  Patient  Griselde."  What  reader  has  it  not 
impressed  as  a  most  piteous  passage,  where  the 
poor  mother  meekly  suffers  the  supposed  loss 
of  her  "  children  twain  "  ?  As  it  reads  in  the 
"Clerke'sTale:"  — 


The  Most  Pathetic  Figure  in  Story    111 

"  This  ugly  sergeant  in  the  same  wise 
That  he  hire  doughter  caughte,  right  so  he 
(Or  werse,  if  men  can  any  werse  devise), 
Hath  bent  her  sone,  ful  was  of  beautee  : 
And  ever  in  on  so  patient  was  she, 
That  she  no  chere  made  of  heavinesse, 
But  kist  her  sone  and  after  gan  it  blesse. 

"  Save  this  she  praied  him,  if  that  he  might, 
Hire  litel  sone  he  wold  in  erthe  grave, 
His  tendre  limmes,  delicat  to  sight, 
Fro  foules  and  fro  bestes  for  to  save." 

And,   again,  when   the   children   are   brought 
back  to  her  alive  and  well :  — 

"  Whan  she  this  herd  aswoune  doun  she  falleth, 
For  pitous  joye,  and  after  hire  swouning, 
She  bothe  hire  yonge  children  to  hire  calleth, 
And  in  hire  armes,  pitously  weping, 
Embraceth  hem,  and  tendrely  kissing 
Ful  like  a  moder  with  hire  salte  teres 
She  bathed  both  his  visage  and  his  heres. 

"  '  O  tendre,  o  dere,  o  yonge  children  mine  ! 
Your  woful  moder  wened  steadfastly 
That  cruel  houndes  or  som  foul  vermine 
Had  eten  you ;  but  God  of  his  mercy, 
And  your  benigne  fader  tendrely 
Hath  don  you  kepe  : '  and  in  that  same  stound 
Al  sodenly  she  swapt  adoun  to  ground." 

Still  later  it  seemed  to  me  (and  perhaps 
justly)  that  the  instant  when  Lear  recognizes 
Cordelia  should  be  accounted  the  most  pathetic 
instant  of  all  recorded  human  destiny.  Let  me 


112  Literature  and  Criticism 

here,  however,  make  the  confession  (and  it 
goes  toward  showing  that  the  drama  of  Shake 
speare  should  be  played  as  well  as  read,  always 
provided  it  be  played  worthily)  that  it  was  not 
till  I  saw  Edwin  Booth  portray  the  part  that  I 
realized  its  full  power.  It  is  where  the  old 
king  stretches  out  his  arms,  and  cries  :  — 

"  Pray,  do  not  mock  me  ! 
I  am  a  very  foolish,  fond  old  man, 
Fourscore  and  upward.  .  .  . 

Do  not  laugh  at  me; 
For  as  I  am  a  man,  I  think  this  lady 
To  be  my  child  Cordelia  !  " 

But  there  is  a  pathos  that  moves  the  intel 
lect,  rather  than  the  source  of  tears.  And  to 
this  faculty  it  has  sometimes  seemed,  as  I  have 
meditated  on  the  woeful  possibilities  of  human 
fate,  that  nothing  can  be  more  sorrowful  than 
the  destiny  of  Tithonus,  the  morn's  aged  and 
immortal  lover :  — 

"  The  woods  decay,  the  woods  decay  and  fall, 
The  vapors  weep  their  burden  to  the  ground, 
Man  comes  and  tills  the  field  and  lies  beneath, 
And  after  many  a  summer  dies  the  swan. 
The  only  cruel  immortality 
Consumes  :  I  wither  slowly  in  thine  arms, 
Here  at  the  quiet  limit  of  the  world, 
A  white-hair'd  shadow  roaming  like  a  dream 
The  ever  silent  spaces  of  the  East, 
Far-folded  mists,  and  gleaming  halls  of  morn. 


The  Most  Pathetic  Figure  in  Story    113 

I  asked  thee, '  Give  me  immortality.' 
Then  did  thou  grant  my  asking  with  a  smile, 
Like  wealthy  men  who  care  not  how  they  give. 
But  thy  strong  Hours  indignant  work'd  their  wills, 
And  beat  me  down  and  warr'd  and  wasted  me, 
And  though  they  could  not  end  me,  left  me  maim'd 
To  dwell  in  presence  of  immortal  youth. 

"  Immortal  age  beside  immortal  youth, 
And  all  I  was,  in  ashes.     Can  thy  love, 
Thy  beauty,  make  amends,  though  even  now, 
Close  over  us,  the  silver  star,  thy  guide, 
Shines  in  those  tremulous  eyes  that  fill  with  tears 
To  hear  me  ? 

Coldly  thy  rosy  shadows  bathe  me,  cold 
Are  all  thy  lights,  and  cold  my  wrinkled  feet 
Upon  thy  glimmering  thresholds,  when  the  stream 
Floats  up  from  those  dim  fields  about  the  homes 
Of  happy  men  that  have  the  power  to  die, 
And  grassy  barrows  of  the  happier  dead." 

But  to  me  now,  as  I  recall  the  "  moving  acci 
dents  "  of  written  story,  perhaps  that  appears 
most  touching  which  Scott  relates  in  the  poem 
of  "  Helvellyn  ; "  though  the  chord  which  it 
touches  be  not  of  sympathy  with  manhood,  but 
only  of  faithful  dog-hood,  most  "tender  and 
true."  The  quaint  prelude  relates,  in  its  old- 
fashioned  prose,  how  "  a  young  gentleman  of 
talents  and  of  a  most  amiable  disposition  per 
ished  by  losing  his  way  on  the  mountain.  His 
remains  were  not  discovered  till  three  months 


114  Literature  and  Criticism 

afterwards,  when  they  were  found  guarded  by 
a  faithful  terrier  bitch,  his  constant  attendant 
during  frequent  solitary  rambles  through  the 
wilds  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland."  It 
is  the  same  incident  that  Wordsworth  cele 
brates  in  a  poem  which  has  no  passage  of  any 
thing  like  the  imaginative  power  of  that  which 
I  am  about  to  quote  from  Scott,  yet  I  will  re 
call  to  the  reader  its  closing  stanzas  :  — 

"  But  hear  a  wonder,  for  whose  sake 
This  lamentable  tale  I  tell ! 
A  lasting  monument  of  words 
This  wonder  merits  well." 

(This  of  the  "  lasting  monument "  is  very 
characteristic  of  the  one  bard,  and  how  little  it 
would  have  been  characteristic  of  the  other !) 

"  The  Dog  which  still  was  hovering  nigh, 
Repeating  the  same  timid  cry, 
This  Dog  had  been  through  three  months'  space 
A  dweller  in  that  savage  place. 
Yes,  proof  was  plain  that  since  the  day 
When  this  ill-fated  Traveler  died, 
The  Dog  had  watched  about  the  spot, 
Or  by  his  master's  side  : 
How  nourished  here  through  such  long  time 
He  knows,  who  gave  that  love  sublime ; 
And  gave  that  strength  of  feeling,  great 
Above  all  human  estimate !  " 

And  this  is  the  passage  from  Scott,  doubtless 
familiar  to  a  hundred  for  every  one  who  re- 


The  Most  Pathetic  Figure  in  Story    115 

members  the  "lasting  monument "  which  the 
profounder  yet  often  weaker  poet  wrought :  — 

"  Not  yet  quite  deserted,  though  lonely  extended, 
For,  faithful  in  death,  his  mute  favorite  attended, 
The  much-loved  remains  of  her  master  defended, 
And  chased  the  hill-fox  and  the  raven  away. 

"  How  long  didst  thou  think  that  his  silence  was  slum 
ber  ? 
When  the  wind  waved  his  garment^  how  oft  didst 

thou  start? 

How  many  long  days  and  long  weeks  didst  thou  num 
ber, 

Ere  he  faded  before  thee,  the  friend  of  thy  heart  ? 
And,  oh,  was  it  meet  that  —  no  requiem  read  o'er  him, 

No  mother  to  weep,  and  no  friend  to  deplore  him, 
And  thou,  little  guardian,  alone  stretch'd  before  him 
Unhonor'd  the  Pilgrim  from  life  should  depart  ? 


But  meeter  for  thee,  gentle  lover  of  nature, 

To  lay  down  thy  head  like  the  meek  mountain  lamb, 

When,  wilder'd,   he  drops  from  some  cliff   high    in 

stature, 
And  draws  his  last  sob  by  the  side  of  his  dam." 

After  all,  be  it  noted,  this  is  not  a  morbid 
but  a  very  wholesome  direction  of  inquiry. 
The  contemplation  of  the  real  pathos  of  other 
lives,  even  if  they  be  but  products  of  the  "  blind 
life  within  the  brain,"  may  haply  save  us  from 
that  most  contemptible  of  illusions,  —  the  self- 


116          Literature  and  Criticism 

pitying  fancy  that  there  is  anything  specially 
pathetic  or  tragic  in  the  commonplace  fortunes 
of  our  own  little  well-enough-to-do  and  tea-and- 
toast-consuming  life. 


GERMAN  LYRIC  POETRY  vs.  FRENCH 

IF  the  best  French  lyric  poetry  of  modern 
days  has  indisputably  a  charm  of  refinement 
and  delicate  beauty  all  its  own,  the  best  of  the 
German  has  an  inveterate  earnestness  and  a 
depth  of  feeling  that  endear  it  to  all  who  have 
really  come  into  its  world.  One  does  not  so 
often  say  of  it,  "  How  exquisite  ! "  "  How  beau 
tiful  ! "  but  if  there  be  in  any  one's  pocket-book 
some  long-treasured  scrap  of  verse,  well  worn 
now  at  the  fold  and  edges,  the  chances  are  that 
if  it  is  not  English  —  written,  I  mean,  on  Eng 
lish  soil  —  it  is  German. 

Not  only  does  the  time-spirit  work  his  special 
wonders,  giving  to  one  epoch  the  ballad,  to  an 
other  the  drama,  to  another  the  subjective  lyric, 
but  the  place-spirit,  as  well,  has  always  wrought 
his  own  characteristic  marvels.  Each  conti 
nent  and  island  and  mountain  rampart  and 
valley  basin  has  had  its  particular  dippings 
in  the  sea  and  liftings  into  the  air,  its  glacier- 
ploughing  and  meteor -sowing,  not  in  vain. 
The  result  is  that  each  spot  produces  its  own 
flowers  and  its  own  weeds  in  literature.  So,  if 


118          Literature  attd  Criticism 

no  German  could  ever  have  written  Beranger's 
rollicking  "Je  suis  vilain  et  tres  vilain, — Je 
suis  vilain,"  or  Hugo's  "  Le  Cimetiere  d'Eylau," 
or  De  Vigny's  "  Le  Cor,"  or  De  Musset's  "  Le 
Poete,"  or  CoppeVs  "  Intimite's,"  or  "  Les 
Epreuves  "  of  Sully  Prudhomme,  it  is  equally 
certain  that  no  Frenchman  could  have  writ 
ten  Freiligrath's  "O  lieb',  so  lang  du  lieben 
kannst ! "  or  Hartmann's  "  Seit  Sie  Gestor- 
ben,"  or  Griin's  "  Der  Letzte  Dichter,"  or  any 
poem  of  Goethe's  or  Schiller's. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  say  just  what  this 
essence  is  which  exists  in  one  and  not  in  the 
other.  We  vaguely  feel  the  difference,  rather 
than  distinctly  perceive  it.  The  persistent 
earnestness  of  the  German  poem  is  one  thing. 
The  French  lyric  may  be  serious  enough,  and 
even  sad  ;  but  we  feel  it  to  be  a  passing  mood, 
or  a  mood  that  surely  will  pass,  in  time.  The 
German  poem  appears  to  go  down,  for  founda 
tion,  to  a  sense  of  the  permanent  and  essential 
seriousness  of  all  human  existence.  It  is  writ 
ten  against  a  background  that  reflects  a  "sober 
coloring "  upon  all  its  feeling.  The  French 
lyric  may  be  "a  thing  woven 'as  out  of  rain 
bows,"  but  not  on  this  "ground  of  eternal 
black." 

The  contrast  in  the  two  views  of  nature  is 
very  marked.  The  French  poet  sees  a  thou- 


German  Lyric  Poetry  vs.  French    119 

sand  delicate  shades  that  the  German  misses. 
Is  there  a  German  equivalent  for  the  nuance  of 
the  French  perception  and  feeling  ?  But  the 
every-day,  obvious  scenes  of  nature,  its  massive 
aspects  and  forces,  the  things  that  every  man 
encounters,  —  these  the  German  poet  renders 
again  with  a  full  heart. 

Perhaps  the  best  topics  on  which  to  feel  the 
difference  are  those  two  immemorial  inspirers 
of  song,  war  and  love.  When  the  German 
poet  sings  of  war,  it  is  with  the  solemnity  of 
Korner's  "  Gebet  Wahrend  der  Schlacht." 
When  the  French  poet  sings  of  it,  it  is  with 
the  "  Gai  !  Gai  !  "  of  Be'ranger.  In  the  one, 
you  hear  the  heavy  tread  of  men,  a  dull,  regu 
lar  beat,  which,  after  all,  is  not  very  distin 
guishable  to  the  ear,  as  to  whether  it  be  an 
advancing  column  or  a  funeral  march.  In  the 
other,  you  hear  only  the  bugles  ringing,  and 
shouts  of  enthusiasm  and  excitement. 

In  their  treatment  of  love  there  is  even 
sharper  contrast.  The  German  word  liebe  has 
quite  a  different  atmosphere  of  suggestion  from 
the  French  amour.  The  German  poet  sings  of 
love  and  home  ;  you  feel  that  there  is  at  least 
a  possibility  that  the  passion  of  to-day  will  out 
last  the  year,  or  the  years.  Constancy  is  one 
of  its  very  elements.  When  the  French  poet 
sings  of  love,  it  is  very  delicate,  rosy,  beautiful, 


120          Literature  and  Criticism 

but  we  do  not  hear  of  home.  When  his  mis 
tress  is  past  her  youth,  we  ask  ourselves,  will 
she  be  thus  loved  and  sung  ? 

There  is  another  side,  certainly.  It  is  only 
the  German  side  that  I  am  just  now  undertak 
ing  to  defend,  and  it  is  easy  to  fall  into  the  ad 
vocate's  fault  of  ignoring  the  opposite  point  of 
view.  The  truth  is,  it  is  a  good  thing  that  we 
have  both  these  literatures.  Both  strains  of 
music  are  a  delight :  the  deep,  steady,  human 
tones  of  the  German  'cello,  and  the  brilliant, 
vibrant,  penetrating  notes  of  the  French  violin. 

The  German  poetry  has  certainly  less  variety 
than  the  French  ;  but  it  speaks  of  life,  and  is 
not  life,  in  its  depth  and  essence,  something  of 
a  monotone  ?  Seek  variety  as  we  may,  there 
is  but  one  winter,  one  summer,  in  the  year. 
There  is  but  one  sort  of  friendship,  one  species 
of  abiding  love,  one  ultimate  close  to  all  our 
comedies  or  tragedies. 

Let  me  not  be  understood  to  imply  that  the 
French  poet  is  never  in  earnest,  never  ele 
mental  and  hearty  in  his  feeling.  It  is  too 
easy  to  make  these  partial  statements  sound 
universal,  and  therefore  manifestly  unjust. 
Skillful  as  so  many  of  the  French  are  in  writ 
ing  what  merely  makes  the  hour  pass  delight 
fully,  there  are  some  who  know  how  to  enrich 
it  as  well.  There  is  no  national  literature  that 


German  Lyric  Poetry  vs.  French    121 

furnishes  too  many  of  those  magicians  who  not 
only  fillip  the  hour-glass,  but  make  it  run  pure 
gold. 

A  source  of  frequent  injustice  to  the  German 
lyric  poets  is  the  abominable  English  transla 
tion  that  is  usually  furnished  with  German 
songs.  If  they  contain  sonorous  syllables, 
fairly  suited  to  the  voice,  it  is  all  that  seems 
to  be  required  by  the  publishers  of  music ;  any 
beauty  or  sense  is  permitted  to  evaporate  in 
passing  from  one  language  to  the  other.  I 
was  struck  by  a  new  instance  of  this,  only  yes 
terday,  in  the  Polish  songs  of  Chopin.  One  of 
them  was  rendered  so  badly  that  I  thought  I 
might  venture  to  give  here  another  version,  im 
perfect  as  it  is,  and  not  yet  tried  with  the  notes  : 

MIR  AUS  DEN  AUGEN 

"  Away  !     Let  not  mine  eyes,  my  heart,  behold  you  !  " 
It  was  your  right  to  choose  ;  I  heard  you  say, 

u  Forget !    We  must  forget !  "    Love  might  have  told  you 
'Twas  vain.     You  could  not,  more  than  I,  obey. 

As  the  dim  shadows  down  the  pastures  lengthen, 
The  further  sinks  the  day-star's  fading  fire, 

So  in  your  breast  will  tender  memories  strengthen, 
Deeper  and  darker  as  my  steps  retire. 

At  every  hour,  in  every  place  of  meeting, 
Where  we  together  shared  delight  and  pain, 

Yes,  everywhere  will  dear  thoughts  keep  repeating, 
"  Here,  too,  his  voice,  his  look,  his  touch,  remain ! " 


122          Literature  and  Criticism 

And  since  I  have  given  a  German  lyric,  it 
might  not  be  amiss  to  close  with  a  French  one, 
of  which  I  have  tried  to  give  some  hint,  at 
least,  in  English,  —  a  sonnet  from  the  new  vol 
ume  of  Sully  Prudhomme  :  — 

L'AMOUR  ASSASSINfi 

Poor  wretch !  that  smites,  in  his  despair  insane, 
The  tender  mouth  for  which  he  has  no  bread, 
And  in  some  lonely  spot,  ere  it  be  dead, 

Covers  the  little  corse,  yet  warm,  ill-slain : 

So  I  struck  down  dear  Love  for  being  born  ! 

I  smoothed  the  limbs,  and  closed  the  eyes,  and  lone 
The  darling  form  was  left,  'neath  ponderous  stones  ; 

Then,  at  my  deed  dismayed,  I  fled  forlorn. 

I  deemed  my  love  was  dead  indeed,  in  vain  ! 
Erect  he  speaks,  close  by  the  open  tomb, 
Mid  April  lilacs  even  there  in  bloom, 

With  immortelles  his  pale  brow  glorified  : 
"  Thou  didst  but  wound  ;  I  live  to  seek  her  side ; 
Not  by  thy  hand,  not  thine,  can  I  be  slain  !  " 


THE   CLANG-TINT  OF  WORDS 

IT  is  interesting  to  notice  what  a  difference 
there  is  in  words  as  to  their  atmosphere.  Two 
terms  that  the  dictionaries  give  as  being  nearly 
or  quite  synonymous  may  have  widely  different 
values  for  literary  use.  Each  has  its  own  envel 
oping  suggestiveness,  —  "  airs  from  Heaven/' 
or  emanations  from  elsewhere.  Of  two  words 
denoting  the  same  object  or  action,  one  may 
come  drawing  with  it  "  a  light,  a  glory,  a  fair 
luminous  cloud  ; "  the  other  bringing  a  disa 
greeable  smudge.  Accordingly,  in  the  literary 
art,  it  is  not  enough  to  use  language  with  an 
exact  sense  of  definitions ;  one  must  add  to 
this  logical  precision  a  nice  instinct  for  atmo 
spheric  effect.  Just  as  a  tone  of  a  particular 
pitch  is  one  thing  on  a  flute,  and  another  on  a 
horn,  each  having  its  own  timbre,  so  a  term 
having  a  precise  meaning  is  one  thing  if  it  has 
dropped  caroling  out  of  Grecian  skies,  and 
from  the  delicate  hands  of  Keats  and  Shelley, 
but  quite  another  thing  if  it  has  come  clattering 
and  rumbling  up  out  of  clodhoppers'  horse- 
talk.  Moreover,  just  as  the  difference  between 


124  Literature  and  Criticism 

tones  on  various  instruments  is  due  to  their 
diverse  groups  of  harmonic  over-tones,  one 
superposed  on  another,  so  the  individual  at 
mosphere  of  any  word  comes  from  its  having 
its  own  composite  set  of  associations,  some 
faint  and  vague,  some  strong  and  definite,  that 
have  through  all  its  history  been  clustering 
upon  it. 

Now,  this  timbre  or  clang-tint  of  words  can 
not  be  learned  from  any  dictionary.  It  must 
be  caught,  little  by  little,  from  a  kind  of  house 
hold  familiarity  with  the  choicest  writers. 
Euphuists,  we  may  call  these  best  writers  of 
every  age ;  for  that  much-misunderstood  move 
ment  of  old  times,  known  and  ridiculed  as 
euphuism,  was  in  reality  only  a  product  of  this 
instinct  of  refinement  in  the  choice  of  terms. 
In  that  passage  from  Wordsworth's  "  Brougham 
Castle,"  -—  a  warm  bit  of  color  that  stands  out 
from  a  cold  poem  like  a  flash  of  red  sunset  on 
bare  trees  in  the  snow,  — 

"  Armor  rusting  in  his  halls 

On  the  blood  of  Clifford  calls; 
*  Quell  the  Scot ! '  exclaims  the  Lance  ; 
'  Bear  me  to  the  heart  of  France  ! ' 

Is  the  longing  of  the  Shield," 

what  could  have  been  substituted  for  "  quell"  ? 
"  Crush,"  "  beat,"  "  kill,"  "  smash,"  —  either 
one  would  have  been  out  of  the  question.  Or 


The  Clang-Tint  of  Words          125 

what  could  have  been  used  instead  of  "  bear  "  ? 
"Bring,"  "take,"  "fetch,"  "lug,"  —  each  is 
impossible.  "  Quell"  and  "bear"  by  the  way, 
are  not  terms  of  every-day  use  in  common 
speech ;  yet  this  is  the  poet  who  is  popularly 
supposed,  by  those  who  have  read  about  him 
more  than  they  have  read  him,  to  have  abjured 
all  merely  literary  language.  The  truth  is,  his 
distinction  is  rather  that  of  having  passed  hon 
est  coin  instead  of  counters.  He  used  lan 
guage  not  for  the  sound  of  it,  but  for  the  sense 
of  it.  The  verse-carpenters  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  patching  up  their  products  with  unfelt 
and  unmeant  "  poetic  words  ;"  their  work  was 
called  "  poetry "  because  it  was  not  prose. 
But  Wordsworth  never  used  a  word,  whether 
big  or  little,  Latin  or  Saxon,  except  to  carry  an 
idea ;  and  he  picked  them  not  only  according 
to  their  exact  sense,  but  according  to  their 
exact  clang-tint  as  well. 

No  doubt  one  of  the  most  charming  among 
the  atmospheric  qualities  of  words  is  that  in 
evitable  suggestion  of  sincerity  in  their  use 
which  clings  about  the  homely  diction  of  every 
day  intercourse.  Not  only  Wordsworth,  but  all 
of  the  good  modern  poets,  sing  for  the  most 
part  in  the  same  language  in  which  they  would 
talk;  and,  for  that  matter,  did  not  Chaucer, 
and  did  not  Shakespeare?  The  best  litera- 


126  Literature  and  Criticism 

ture  and  the  best  conversation  contrive  to  get 
on  with  but  one  vocabulary.  It  is  only  the 
dreary  scribblers  that  persist  in  prodding  our 
inattentive  brains  with  startling  forms  of  speech. 
It  is  already  merry  times  in  literature  when  we 
are  not  any  longer  afraid  of  our  mother  tongue. 
We  instinctively  sheer  off  from  any  writer  who 
uses  what  Rogers  ("  the  poet  Rogers  ")  called 
"album  words."  Certain  type-metal  terms 
have  come  to  serve  as  ear-marks  of  insincerity 
and  of  the  mere  ambition  to  write  something, 
—  terms  that  are  never  used  in  honest  speech, 
and  the  employment  of  which  in  conversation 
would  make  a  man  feel  absurd.  When  we 
find  the  ideas  common  and  the  words  uncom 
mon  we  have  learned  that  we  may  as  well  put 
down  the  volume,  or  turn  the  leaf  of  the  maga 
zine.  The  newspapers  have  some  words  of 
this  sort,  dear  to  them,  but  the  betes  noires  of 
all  lovers  of  straightforward  English ;  such  are 
"peruse  "  and  "  replete." 

One  gets  a  vivid  sense  of  the  different  at 
mosphere  about  words  substantially  synony 
mous  in  trying  to  make  substitutions  in  a  proof- 
sheet.  For  example,  the  lynx-eyed  proof-reader 
has  some  day  conveyed  to  you,  by  means  of  the 
delicately  unobtrusive  intimation  of  a  blue- 
pencil  line,  the  fact  that  you  have  repeated  a 
word  three  times  in  the  space  of  a  short  para- 


The  Clang -Tint  of  Words          127 

graph.  You  have  to  find  a  substitute.  It  is 
easy  to  think  of  half  a  dozen  terms  that  stand 
for  very  nearly  the  same  idea,  but  it  is  in  the 
incongruous  implications  of  them  all  that  the 
difficulty  lies.  You  consult  your  Book  of 
Synonyms,  and  find  there  nearly  all  you  have 
already  thought  of,  but  never  any  others. 
There  is,  however,  one  further  resource.  You 
have  had  from  boyhood  the  "  Thesaurus  of  Eng 
lish  Words."  Hundreds  of  times,  during  all 
these  years,  you  have  referred  to  its  wonderful 
wealth  of  kindred  terms.  You  seem  dimly  to 
remember  that  on  one  occasion  in  the  remote 
past  you  did  find  in  it  a  missing  word  you 
wanted.  It  shall  have  one  more  chance  to  dis 
tinguish  itself.  Perhaps  the  sentence  to  be 
amended  reads  thus  :  "  As  he  tore  open  the 
telegram  a  smile  of  bitter  mockery  flickered 
across  his  haggard  features,  and  he  staggered 
behind  the  slender  column."  Suppose,  now, 
it  is  the  word  "  mockery  "  for  which  you  seek 
a  substitute.  The  Thesaurus  suggests,  a  smile 
of  bitter  bathos,  bitter  buffoonery,  bitter  slip-of- 
the-tongue,  bitter  scurrility.  Or  suppose  it  is 
"  staggered  "  that  is  to  be  eliminated.  You  find 
as  alluring  alternatives,  he  fluctuated,  he  cur 
veted,  he  librated,  he  dangled.  If  each  one  of 
these  would  seem  to  impart  a  certain  flavor 
that  is  hardly  required  for  your  present  pur- 


128          Literature  and  Criticism 

pose,  you  may  write,  \\tpranced,  he  flapped,  he 
churned,  he  effervesced,  behind  the  slender  col 
umn.  Or  should  the  word  to  be  removed  be 
"haggard"  you  have  your  choice  between  his 
squalid  features,  his  maculated  features,  his 
besmeared  features,  his  rickety  features.  Or, 
finally,  if  you  are  in  search  of  something  to  fill 
the  place  of  "  column,"  your  incomparable  hand 
book  allows  you  to  choose  freely  between  the 
slender  tallness,  the  slender  may-pole,  the  slen 
der  hummock,  promontory,  top-gallant-mast,  pro- 
cerity,  monticle,  or  garret.  The  object  of  this 
work,  says  the  title-page,  is  "to  facilitate  the 
expression  of  ideas,  and  assist  in  literary  com 
position." 


THE  OBJECTIONS   TO   SPELLING 
REFORM 

THERE  are  two  insuperable  objections,  in  my 
private  and  heretical  opinion,  to  the  so-called 
"  reformed  "  spelling.  One  is  that  it  would 
increase  the  already  too  great  similarity  in 
words.  Syllables  that  are  at  present  identical 
only  to  the  ear  would  then  become  alike  to  the 
eye  also.  Now  the  true  theory  of  a  visible  and 
audible  language  demands  that  the  symbols  of 
ideas  should  differ  as  much  as  the  ideas.  Rite, 
right,  and  write  are  three  wholly  distinct  ideas, 
and  their  symbols  ought  to  be  correspondingly 
distinct.  In  the  natural  and  undisturbed  de 
velopment  of  a  language  they  would  differ  both 
to  ear  and  to  eye ;  but  our  present  tongue  is 
the  result  of  confusing  influences,  and  the 
sounds  of  our  speech  have  been  allowed  in 
many  instances  to  lose  their  differentiation. 
The  eye,  however,  being  a  more  intellectual 
organ  than  the  ear,  has  refused  to  permit  the 
visible  symbols  to  break  down  into  this  indis 
tinguishable  similarity.  If  we  cannot  have 
every  idea  represented  by  a  different  symbol  to 


130          Literature  and  Criticism 

the  ear,  at  least  let  us  not  throw  away  at  the 
command  of  a  false  notion  whatever  difference 
remains  to  the  eye.  Mete,  meat,  meet ;  night 
and  knight ;  sight,  site,  cite ;  mind  and  mined ; 
aisle  and  isle ;  by\  bye,  buy ;  sent,  scent,  cent  ; 
sell  and  cell;  wait  and  weight ;  all  and  awl, 
and  a  great  number  of  other  such  pairs  or  trip 
lets  would  lose  what  little  is  left  of  their 
individual  identity.  Depend  upon  it,  this  dif 
ference  of  spelling  has  not  been  a  result  of 
accident.  It  has  been  retained  because  of  a 
felt  instinct  of  the  usefulness  of  keeping  things 
separate  in  appearance  which  are  separate  in 
fact.  Any  one  who  has  dabbled  in  phonogra 
phy  knows  that  the  fatal  defect  of  all  short 
hand  systems  of  writing,  for  any  but  those  who 
make  a  long-continued  specialty  of  their  use,  is 
the  extreme  similarity  of  the  signs,  especially 
when  combined  in  words  and  phrases.  The 
advantage  of  our  alphabet  lies  in  the  ingenious 
diversity  of  its  forms,  enabling  the  eye  to  seize 
on  the  special  characteristic  of  each  letter, 
even  in  hurried  script.  This  is  the  secret  of 
its  having  been  retained  unchanged  through  so 
many  generations  of  men. 

My  second  objection  to  phonetic  spelling  is 
that  it  would  petrify  any  language  in  the  forms 
which  it  happened  to  have  at  the  moment  of 
adopting  the  "  reform."  Now  I  feel  sure,  what- 


The  Objections  to  Spelling  Reform     131 

ever  certain  eminent  philologists  may  say,  that 
the  language-making  instinct  is  by  no  means 
extinct  in  us.  So  far  as  the  iron  grip  of  the 
dictionaries  will  let  it,  language  tends  to  move 
and  change.  And  this,  too,  not  at  haphazard, 
but  in  obedience  to  a  felt  congruity  between 
sound  and  sense.  One  or  two  examples  are  as 
good  as  a  hundred  to  illustrate  this.  Why  do 
children  and  all  persons  not  standing  in  awe 
of  the  dictionary  incline  to  say  tinny  or  teeny 
for  a  minute  object,  instead  of  tiny,  if  not  that 
the  littleness  of  the  sound  is  more  suited  to  the 
littleness  of  the  thing  ?  And  why  do  so  many 
persons  show  a  reluctance  to  pronouncing  the 
o  in  the  name  of  the  Deity  short,  as  in  dog  or 
fog?  If  a  fixed  phonetic  spelling,  backed  up 
by  all  the  power  of  the  more  and  more  tyran 
nical  dictionaries,  is  allowed  to  paralyze  all  the 
instincts  of  growth  and  change  in  the  language, 
throwing  it  into  a  dead  and  fossil  condition 
before  its  time,  there  will  be  no  longer  possible 
such  progress  as.  for  example,  that  from  the 
old  English  ic  to  the  modern  I.  Ic  was  too 
insignificant  a  sound  for  the  whole  weight  of 
the  first  person,  and  that,  too,  in  its  nominative 
case  of  willing  and  acting.  The  idea  needed 
(and  once  had)  a  more  fitting  sound-symbol, 
and  at  last  found  it  again  in  this  noble  vowel, 
a  compound  whose  first  tone  is  ah,  that  broad 
est  and  fullest  utterance  in  any  language. 


PRINCIPLES  OF  CRITICISM 

THE  value  that  men  have  set  upon  art  and 
literature  proves  that  these  have  ministered  to 
some  deep-seated  and  permanent  human  de 
sire.  What  is  this  desire  ?  Or  if  there  be  more 
than  one,  which  is  the  deepest  seated  and  most 
permanent —  in  other  words,  the  paramount  — 
desire  ?  The  true  answer  to  this  question,  if 
we  can  discover  it,  must  furnish  us  with  a 
much-needed  test  for  literary  and  art  values. 
It  must,  in  short,  furnish  a  basis,  and  the  only 
correct  basis,  for  the  criticism  of  all  literary 
and  art  products. 

For,  obviously,  before  we  are  in  a  position 
to  determine  the  worth  of  a  thing,  or  the  rela 
tive  worth  of  any  two  or  three  things  of  the 
same  general  sort,  we  have  to  inquire,  What 
purpose  is  this  thing  intended  to  serve  ?  What 
is  it  expected  to  do  ? 

Now  it  is  precisely  on  this  point  that  there 
seem  to  have  been  very  confused  ideas  among 
critics,  —  and  by  this  is  not  meant  profes 
sional  critics  only,  but  all  those  who  have  at 
tempted,  either  for  themselves  or  for  others,  to 


Principles  of  Criticism  133 

form  correct  estimates  of  the  value  or  compar 
ative  values,  of  works  of  literature  and  art. 
Professional  critics,  especially  (for  it  is  they, 
especially,  who  have  seemed  to  feel  that  they 
must  not  trust  to  their  instincts,  which  would 
often  have  done  better  for  them,  but  must 
make  at  least  a  show  of  having  some  well- 
understood  basis  of  critical  principles),  have 
apparently  been  in  a  position  not  unlike  that 
of  a  layman  at  some  mechanics'  fair,  who  under 
takes  to  pass  judgment  on  a  machine  of  whose 
purpose  and  uses  he  has  next  to  no  idea. 

Perhaps  the  novel  and  the  poem  have  been 
the  most  conspicuous  examples  of  this  failure, 
on  the  part  of  ordinary  criticism,  to  base  itself 
on  any  clear  understanding  of  what  these  forms 
of  the  literary  art  are  essentially  for.  One 
novel  will  be  praised  on  the  ground  that  it  has 
a  moral  purpose,  another  on  the  ground  (as  by 
that  distinguished  critic,  M.  Taine)  that  it  has 
not  a  moral  purpose ;  one  on  the  ground  that 
it  paints  actual  facts  from  the  life,  another  on 
the  ground  that  it  depicts  an  ideal  world ;  one 
on  the  ground  that  it  gives  pleasure,  another 
on  the  ground  that  it  gives  information,  and 
so  on.  If  the  novel  has  not  all  these  objects 
in  view  (and  some  of  them  are  a  little  incon 
sistent  with  each  other),  which  of  them  has  it  ? 
And  if  several  of  them,  which  object  is  the 


134  Literature  and  Criticism 

essential  one,  —  the  one  which,  being  accom 
plished,  the  novel  cannot  be  a  thoroughly  poor 
one,  or  which,  being  unaccomplished,  it  cannot 
be  a  thoroughly  good  one  ? 

So  with  the  poem.  The  reason  that  the 
critics  have,  through  all  time,  been  so  ludi 
crously  incapable  of  making  an  estimate  of  any 
given  work  of  poetry  (except  in  the  case  of  an 
imitation,  where  a  verdict  on  the  original  had 
already  been  furnished  them)  that  should  be 
corroborated,  unless  through  accident,  by  the 
test  of  time  is  that  there  has  been  no  clear  and 
well-settled  opinion  as  to  the  true  purpose  of 
the  poetic  art.  Is  it  to  move  us  to  t{  pity  and 
terror,"  and  at  the  same  time  do  to  these  feel 
ings  some  ambiguous  thing  which  Greek  schol 
ars  never  have  been  exactly  able  to  make  out, 
as  Aristotle  said  ;  or  is  it  to  "  please,"  as 
everybody  else  has  always  said,  till  De  Quincey 
blew  one  of  his  withering  blasts  at  that  shallow 
notion,  but  as  the  average  critic  apparently  still 
continues  to  believe  ?  Is  its  true  function  best 
fulfilled  by  being  so  intelligible  that  everybody 
can  understand  it,  or  by  being  so  unintelligible 
that  nobody  can,  except  the  poet  himself,  and 
he  only  before  it  gets  cold  ?  Is  it  true  that  a 
poem  cannot  be  a  true  poem  unless  it  is 
"  short ; "  or  are  we  still  permitted  to  believe 
that  the  Iliad  is,  after  all,  a  sort  of  poem  ? 


Principles  of  Criticism  135 

In  seeking  for  reliable  principles  on  which 
just  criticism  may  be  based,  we  must,  if  possi 
ble,  find  those  which  are  broad  enough  to  in 
clude  all  art.  Otherwise  we  should  suspect 
them  of  not  being  fundamental  principles.  For 
literature  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  fine  arts.  Not 
everything  that  is  written,  of  course,  belongs  to 
literature  proper ;  but  when  a  written  product 
becomes  a  part  of  what  has  well  enough  been 
called  belles-lettres,  —  as  a  poem,  for  example, 
in  contradistinction  from  a  Patent  Office  Re 
port,  —  it  belongs  to  the  art  of  literature,  and 
is  closely  allied  to  the  other  fine  arts ;  giving 
us,  like  them,  that  immediate  and  direct  satis 
faction  of  a  high  order  which  we  call  aesthetic 
pleasure,  or  delight.  Literature,  as  we  shall 
see,  gives  us  much  more  than  this,  but  this  it 
gives  us  in  common  with  the  other  arts. 

If,  then,  we  ask  for  a  test  or  criterion  for  art 
in  general,  the  reply  may  be  made,  The  true 
test  is  that  it  shall  be  beautiful.  But  the  un 
derlying  question  is,  What  is  "beauty,"  and 
what  things  are  "  beautiful  "  ? 

Evidently  beauty  is  not  a  simple  quality,  ap 
prehended  by  a  distinct  inner  sense,  the  "sense 
of  beauty,"  though  it  has  sometimes  crudely 
been  so  considered.  It  is  plain  enough,  on 
reflection,  that  beauty  is  a  complex  thing,  and 
requires  analysis.  All  great  works  of  art,  and 


136          Literature  and  Criticism 

especially  of  the  literary  art,  are  more  than 
merely  beautiful,  but  we  may  first  of  all  inves 
tigate  this  quality. 

Let  us  take,  to  begin  with,  as  the  simplest 
of  the  arts,  that  of  visible  form.  Its  simplest 
element  is  the  line ;  then  the  curved  line,  as  of 
the  mountain  or  wave  outline.  Its  highest  and 
most  complex  product  is  the  statue,  or  group 
of  statuary. 

The  writers  on  aesthetics,  in  their  attempts 
to  furnish  an  analysis  of  the  beautiful,  have 
seemed  to  hover  at  a  greater  or  less  distance 
around  a  central  idea,  none  —  unless  it  be  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer,  whose  views  have  been  ex 
pressed  only  in  scattered  suggestions  —  pre 
cisely  hitting  it,  and  yet  few  being  far  away 
from  it.  We  mean  the  idea  that  beauty  gives 
us  activity  of  mind  and  feeling.  Hogarth,  for 
example,  speaks  of  the  quality  of  variety  in 
lines  as  an  element  of  their  beauty.  The  wav 
ing  line,  or  undulating  curve,  he  calls  especially 
the  "  line  of  beauty,"  because  it  gives  the  eye 
much  variety  of  direction  without  displeasing 
it  (without  hindering  it,  we  should  prefer  to 
say)  by  sudden  changes  of  direction.  Sir  Wil 
liam  Hamilton,  in  likewise  attributing  the  effect 
of  beauty  to  the  union  of  variety  with  unity, 
explains  our  delight  in  it  by  the  fact  of  its  giv 
ing  full  play  at  once  to  the  imagination  through 


Principles  of  Criticism  137 

variety,  and  to  the  understanding  through  unity. 
Alison,  attributing  the  entire  effect  to  the  asso 
ciation  of  ideas,  makes  beauty  to  consist  in  the 
power  of  giving  active  emotions,  as  of  cheer 
fulness  or  sadness,  and  of  awakening  trains  of 
corresponding  ideas  in  the  mind.  Mr.  James 
Sully  points  out  the  imperfection  of  this  theory 
in  its  exclusion  of  the  element  of  direct  aesthetic 
pleasure  derived  from  color,  form,  or  tone. 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  following  a  hint  derived 
from  Schiller,  considers  the  aesthetic  activities 
to  be  essentially  the  play  of  the  mind.  He 
grades  aesthetic  pleasures  according  to  the 
number  of  powers  called  into  activity;  the  low 
est  being  the  pleasure  of  mere  sensation,  as 
from  tone  or  color ;  next,  the  pleasure  of  per 
ception,  as  from  combinations  of  color,  or  sym 
metries  of  form ;  and  highest,  the  pleasure  of 
the  aesthetic  sentiments  proper,  composed  of 
multitudinous  emotions  excited  in  the  mind  by 
associations,  some  of  them  reaching  far  back 
in  the  race  experience  of  man. 

The  central  idea,  round  which  these  and 
other  theories  cluster,  is  that  of  increased  ac 
tivity  as  the  essential  effect  of  beauty  on  the 
mind. 

In  the  two  arts  of  form  and  of  tone,  the  sim 
plest  elements  —  the  straight  line  and  the  sin 
gle  tone  —  may  be  considered  as  correspond- 


138  Literature  and  Criticism 

ent.  For  the  tone  differs  from  mere  noise  in 
being  produced  by  periodic  vibrations,  so  that 
in  its  apprehension  our  consciousness  is  con 
tinuous  ;  whereas  in  hearing  a  mere  noise,  owing 
to  the  interferences  of  the  jumbled  vibrations, 
our  consciousness  is  interrupted  and  intermit 
tent.  Precisely  so,  an  irregular  and  confused 
multitude  of  dots  made  by  the  pencil  on  paper 
would  be  a  noise  in  visible  form  ;  while  a  con 
tinuous  row  of  dots,  that  is  to  say  a  straight 
line,  would  be  a  tone  in  form.  In  the  tone  as 
in  the  line  the  consciousness  is  unhindered  and 
continuous.  Again,  just  as  we  may  have  a 
noise  of  tones  which,  although  musical  tones 
separately,  are  clashed  together  in  discord,  so 
we  may  have  a  noise,  so  to  speak,  of  lines 
clean  and  straight  in  themselves,  but  thrown 
into  a  tangled  mass  which  the  eye  cannot  fol 
low. 

Rising  a  step  higher,  we  have  the  curve  in 
form,  answering  to  the  melody  in  music.  In 
either  case,  its  effect  is  a  succession  of  changes 
of  impression,  but  of  such  a  nature  that  the 
consciousness  may  be  continuous  in  appre 
hending  them.  A  jagged  and  irregularly  an 
gular  line,  on  the  other  hand,  would  correspond 
to  a  haphazard  succession  of  tones,  regardless 
of  the  conditions  of  melodious  arrangement, 
since  both  produce  checks  and  interruptions  of 


Principles  of  Criticism  139 

the  flowing  continuity  of  consciousness.  Ho 
garth's  line  of  beauty,  in  other  words,  is  the 
pleasantest  melody  of  form,  because  it  gives  to 
conscious  apprehension  the  greatest  total  of 
sight  activity  without  check. 

But  a  harmony,  whether  of  audible  tones  or 
of  visible  forms,  is  still  more  delightful  than  a 
melody.  Such  a  harmony  of  forms  we  get  in 
the  symmetry  of  two  curves  above  and  below  a 
horizontal  line,  as  in  the  arch  of  a  bridge  re 
flected  in  a  stream,  or  on  the  two  sides  of  a 
vertical  line,  as  in  the  shapely  tree.  Its  sim 
plest  elements  might  be  represented  thus  :  — 


More  graceful  still  is  the  symmetry  of  two 
undulating  curves,  answering  to  each 
other,  and  thus  furnishing  both  mel 
ody  and  harmony.  And  this  brings 
us  to  the  elements  of  one  of  the 
beautiful  forms  of  ancient  art.  For 
joining  the  extremities  of  the  two 
curves,  we  have  the  vase.  If  now  we 
add  to  each  side  another  answering 
pair  of  such  curves,  we  have  it  with 
the  double  arms  of  the  Greek  am 
phora.  And  if  we  add  still  another  such  pair 
at  the  top,  we  have  reached  a  hint  of  the  very 


140          Literature  and  Criticism 

outlines  of  that  which  we  consider 
the  most  graceful  of  all  forms,  the 
human  figure.  For  it  would  require 
but  slight  touches  to  suggest  the 
head  and  the  veritable  arms  and 
limbs  of  the  statue. 

No  doubt  there  is  much  in  the 
beauty  of  the  human  form  besides 
the  mere  symmetry  of  graceful  lines ; 
much  that  depends  on  the  associa 
tion  of  ideas,  as,  for  example,  the 
suggestion  of  force  and  activity  in  muscular 

curves,  — 

"  Those  lines 
That  sweeping  downward  breathe,  in  rest,  of  motion." 

The  important  thing  to  notice  is  that  just  as 
the  simple  grace  of  the  mere  outlines  is  ex 
plicable  through  their  ministering  to  sight  ac 
tivity,  so  the  complex  beauty  is  woven  of  a 
thousand  threads  of  vague  suggestion,  all  linked 
with  ideas  of  health  and  strength  and  myste 
rious  life-functions,  and  so  all  centring  in  the 
satisfaction  of  the  one  desire  for  full  exist 
ence. 

But  complex  as  the  quality  of  beauty  is  in 
the  actual  human  figure,  it  is  even  more  so  in 
the  work  of  plastic  art.  A  statue  which  was 
merely  an  exact  copy  of  life  —  a  photograph  in 
marble  —  would  not  by  any  means  give  us  all 


Principles  of  Criticism  141 

the  aesthetic  delight  of  which  art  is  capable. 
In  fact,  it  would  not  be  art  at  all.  It  is  only 
when  the  artist  bodies  forth  some  conception 
of  his  own  mind  that  we  are  greatly  stirred. 
Then,  besides  the  immediate  beauty  of  the 
melodies  and  harmonies  of  lines,  and  the  me 
diate  beauty,  through  associated  ideas,  of  the 
supple  and  forceful  forms,  we  have  in  some 
pathetic  or  heroic  group  in  marble  a  world  of 
quickened  thoughts  and  feelings.  In  one  of 
Wilhelm  von  Humboldt's  "  Letters  to  a  Lady," 
he  says,  — 

"  The  beauty  of  a  work  of  art  is,  for  the  very 
reason  that  it  is  a  work  of  art,  much  freer  from 
imperfections  than  nature,  and  never  excites 
selfish  emotions.  We  observe  it  attentively, 
we  wonder  at  it  more  and  more,  but  we  do  not 
form  any  connection  between  it  and  ourselves. 
To  the  beauty  of  sculpture  applies  what  Goethe 
has  said  so  finely  of  the  stars  :  *  We  never 
desire  the  stars,  although  we  take  such  pleasure 
in  their  light.'  " 

Now  the  explanation  of  this  superiority  of 
art  to  nature,  aesthetically,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  any  personal  relation  to  self  narrows 
and  lessens  the  spiritual  activity.  And  the 
same  explanation  is  applicable  to  the  connec 
tion  of  aesthetic  pleasures  with  the  play  im 
pulse.  For  the  compelling  of  any  impulse  to- 


142  Literature  and  Criticism 

ward  the  accomplishment  of  some  set  purpose 
must  confine  its  force.  The  stream  of  spiritual 
activity  is  controlled  into  some  single  channel, 
and  there  is  no  longer  that  free  swing  of  all 
the  powers  which  is  the  essence  both  of  "  play  " 
and  of  aesthetic  delight.  In  other  words,  if  we 
enjoy  play  more  than  work,  and  art  more  than 
nature,  it  is  because  we  have  through  their 
means  a  greater  total  of  conscious  life. 

The  art  of  tone  has  this  advantage  over  the 
arts  of  painting  and  sculpture  as  the  direct 
source  of  power  upon  the  spirit,  that  music  is 
a  natural  and  universal  means  of  expression. 
There  can  never  be  "  symphonies  of  color,"  as 
has  been  imagined,  for  the  reason  that  nowhere 
in  the  world  is  color  naturally  (as  distinguished 
from  artistically)  employed  to  express  anything. 
Tone,  on  the  contrary,  is  universally  so  em 
ployed.  Mr.  Spencer,  in  his  "  Essay  on  the 
Origin  of  Music,"  and  elsewhere,  has  admira 
bly  shown  how  this  expressive  use  of  tone  runs 
through  all  the  higher  grades  of  the  animal 
kingdom.  When  the  dog  barks  or  howls,  and 
the  bird  pipes  or  complains,  and  the  child  sings 
or  cries,  it  is  the  beginning  of  music.  For  it 
is  the  beginning  of  the  use  of  tones  to  express 
feeling.  Ordinary  human  speech  is  not  speech 
alone,  conveying  ideas,  but  music  as  well,  con 
veying  feeling.  If  we  listen  to  an  animated 


Principles  of  Criticism  143 

conversation  from  an  adjoining  room,  where 
the  articulation  of  words  is  not  quite  audible, 
we  shall  find  that  it  is  song,  rather  than  speech, 
that  we  hear.  The  voices  go  up  and  down  the 
gamut,  the  intervals  and  the  tempo  increasing 
or  diminishing  as  the  feeling  changes.  The 
staccato,  high-keyed  utterances  of  pleasure  ;  the 
slow,  minor  cadences  of  sorrow  ;  the  deep  mon 
otone  of  determination  ;  the  tremolo  of  passion, 
—  all  these  are  nothing  but  the  song  within  the 
speech.  Whenever  speech  ceases  to  convey 
merely  cold  intellectual  ideas,  and  becomes 
emotional,  the  voice  tends  more  and  more 
toward  song,  ranging  more  widely  through  the 
gamut,  and  taking  on  the  cadences  of  music 
proper.  Perhaps  even  among  the  very  ele 
ments  of  speech,  in  the  vowels,  namely,  we 
have  the  beginnings  of  music  as  expressive  of 
feeling.  For  while  the  consonants  seem  to  be 
mere  checks  or  interruptions  of  the  breath,  ex 
pressing  the  limitation  of  our  consciousness  to 
definite  ideas,  the  vowels  are  pure  tones,  each 
having  a  natural  pitch  of  its  own  (which  one 
may  readily  detect  by  whispering  them  loudly), 
and  expressing  the  play  of  feeling  upon  these 
ideas.  This  may  possibly  help  to  explain  the 
ablaut,  or  change  of  vowel  to  express  tense  in 
the  verb  ;  as,  sing,  sang,  sung.  We  do  not  over 
look  the  theory  which  explains  this  by  the 


144  Literature  and  Criticism 

effect  of  the  ancient  reduplication  ;  but  it 
sometimes  happens  in  philology,  as  in  society, 
that  one  cause  gives  rise  to  a  form,  and  another 
makes  it  permanent.  At  any  rate,  the  present 
fact  is  that,  while  the  consonants  remain  the 
same  in  the  different  tenses  in  this  example,  as 
expressing  the  unchanged  idea  of  the  action, 
the  vowels  change,  as  the  attitude  or  feeling  of 
the  mind  toward  the  action  changes,  whether 
present,  or  just  finished,  or  wholly  past, 

The  reason,  then,  that  music  has  a  much 
greater  direct  power  over  the  feelings  than  any 
other  art  is  that  music  alone  is  based  on  a 
natural  means  of  emotional  expression.  But 
its  power  of  expression  does  not  stop  with  the 
feelings.  Inextricably  bound  up  with  every 
human  feeling  is  a  host  of  ideas  associated 
with  it  in  the  mind,  —  for  every  feeling  a  host 
of  ideas,  for  the  reason  that  the  possible  feel 
ings  are  few,  while  ideas  are  innumerable. 
Accordingly,  music,  whose  power  of  direct  ex 
pression  is  almost  limited  to  the  emotions, 
expresses  different  ideas  to  different  persons, 
—  or  to  ourselves  at  different  times,  —  accord 
ing  as  the  particular  emotion  is  associated  in 
experience  with  one  set  of  ideas  or  another. 
The  sonata  which  to  an  Alpine  goatherd  would 
express  a  thunderstorm  among  rocky  peaks  to 
a  sailor  might  with  equal  distinctness  express 


Principles  of  Criticism  145 

a  tempest  at  sea.  The  larger  and  deeper  the 
life  experience  of  the  listener,  the  more  a  sym 
phony  will  mean  to  him  in  ideas  ;  or  the  fuller 
his  emotional  endowment,  the  more  it  will 
mean  to  him  in  feeling,  —  always  provided 
that  it  is  a  great  work,  a  work  of  genius,  to 
which  he  listens.  Of  course  much  can  come 
out  of  a  symphony  only  if  much  originally  went 
into  it. 

The  secret  of  all  art  is  then  within  the  reach 
of  our  hand  when  we  have  realized  one  single 
fact  concerning  man.  j  As  we  look  out  upon 
life  we  see  its  myriad  activities  all  springing 
from  certain  desires.  But  there  is  one  desire 
among  them  which  is  permanent,  and  para 
mount  to  all.  It  is  not  the  desire  for  mere 
pleasure,  for  it  often  overrides  that ;  it  is  not 
the  desire  for  mere  happiness,  even,  for  it  often 
overrides  that.  It  is  the  desire  for  life  :  not 
the  poor  negative  desire  to  escape  death  and 
cling  to  existence,  merely,  but  the  aspiration 
for  full  and  abounding  life.  To  be  alive  in 
every  faculty ;  to  have  the  greatest  possible 
total  of  conscious  being,  in  physical  impres 
sion  and  effect,  in  intellectual  force  and  grasp, 
in  emotional  glow,  in  the  out-stream  of  the  ac 
tive  will ;  in  short,  completely  to  be  and  live  : 
this  is  the  one  paramount  human  desire.  There 
is  only  one  thing  we  really  dread ;  it  is  death. 


146          Literature  and  Criticism 

There  is  only  one  thing  we  really  desire ;  it  is 
life. , 

And  now  where  is  there  to  be  found  a  per 
petual  source  of  this  power  and  activity  that 
we  perpetually  desire  ?  Nowhere  but  in  the 
expressed  power  and  activity  of  other  human 
spirits,  —  and  that  is  art. 

We  have  seen  that  in  their  very  elements 
the  arts  are  based  on  the  ability  to  satisfy  this 
desire.  For  the  beauty  of  form  consists  in 
giving  the  sense  of  sight  its  greatest  total  of 
unchecked  apprehension  ;  and  the  beauty  of 
tone,  both  in  those  consecutive  harmonies 
which  we  call  melodies  and  in  massed  har 
monies,  in  giving  the  sense  of  hearing  its  great 
est  total  of  uninterrupted  impression.  And 
when  we  pass  beyond  mere  sensuous  delight 
we  find  the  same  essential  effect  —  but  on  the 
mind  now,  and  the  whole  soul  —  from  the  ideas 
and  feelings  expressed  by  the  artist. 

\The  test,  then,  for  all  art  is  that,  expressing 
much  life,  it  shall  give  much  life.  That  paint 
ing,  statue,  symphony,  is  the  greatest  which 
adds  the  greatest  total  to  our  conscious  exist 
ence.  But  we  must  mark  well  a  distinction 
here.  There  are  higher  and  lower  grades  or 
planes  of  existence.  But  by  what  test  ?  By 
no  other  than  this  same  test,  — their  tendency 
for  or  against  renewed  and  increased  life  in 


Principles  of  Criticism  147 

the  whole  nature.  That  pleasure  is  low  which 
tends  to  belittle  the  nature  ;  that  one  is  high 
which  tends  to  enlarge  it.  That  art  is  low 
which  only  stimulates  feelings  and  ideas  most 
apt  to  brutalize  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  restrict  and 
narrow  (for  that  is  the  distinction  between 
brute  and  man,  —  the  one  little,  the  other 
large,  in  powers  and  possibilities).  That  art 
is  high  which  awakens  feelings  and  ideas  that 
are  vital  with  tendencies  toward  more  and  still 
more  of  attainment  and  being. 

And  here  we  see  the  distinction  between 
mere  prettiness  and  genuine  beauty.  A  patch 
of  color  on  the  wall  may  be  called  pretty,  as 
pleasing  the  color  sense  alone  ;  still  more  so, 
if  it  gratifies  also  the  form  sense  by  its  outline. 
But  it  falls  short  of  beauty  because  it  fails 
to  awaken  in  us  any  of  the  higher  activities 
of  our  inner  nature.  Decorative  art  is  only 
pretty ;  it  touches  but  the  surface  of  the  mind. 
Decorative  poetry,  in  the  same  way,  suggests 
only  pretty  images  of  color  or  form.  We  pass 
along  a  picture-gallery,  or  we  turn  the  leaves 
of  a  volume  of  verse.  As  we  pause  before 
some  painting  or  some  poem,  the  question  is, 
What  does  this  give  me  ?  It  may  be  that  it 
gives  the  imagination  some  pretty  image  of  na 
ture.  This  is  something.  It  may  be  that  it 
gives  the  feeling,  also,  some  touch  of  suggested 


148  Literature  and  Criticism 

peace  or  tranquillity.  That  is  more.  But  if  it 
be  a  great  picture,  or  a  great  poem,  the  whole 
spirit  in  us  is  quickened  to  renewed  life.  Not 
only  our  sense  of  color  and  form,  our  percep 
tion  of  harmonious  relations,  but  our  interest 
in  some  crisis  of  human  destiny,  our  thought 
concerning  this,  a  hundred  mingled  streams  of 
fancy  and  reflection  and  will  impulse  are  set 
flowing  in  us ;  because  all  this  was  present  in 
the  man  of  genius  who  produced  the  work,  and 
because  his  "  expression  "  of  it  there  means 
the  carrying  of  it  over  from  his  spirit  into  ours. 
If  it  is  a  work  of  the  very  greatest  rank,  we 
are  more,  from  that  moment  and  forever.  For 
out  of  the  life  the  artist  or  the  poet  has  given 
us  will  be  born  successive  new  accessions  of 
life  perpetually. 

The  art  of  literature  is  the  highest  of  the 
arts  because  its  power  of  expression  is  greatest. 
The  effect  of  music  may  be  more  intense  at  a 
given  moment,  but  its  range  is  not  so  wide,  nor 
its  effect  so  enduring.  And  poetry  is  the  high 
est  form  of  the  literary  art,  by  our  test,  as  hav 
ing  the  fullest  expressive  power ;  since  it  not 
only  expresses  thought,  like  prose,  but  feeling 
also. 

That  poetry  contains  in  itself  the  elements 
of  the  lower  arts,  a  moment's  reflection  will 
show.  In  the  first  place,  it  contains  the  ele- 


Principles  of  Criticism  149 

ments  of  the  arts  of  form,  of  which  sculpture  is 
the  purest  example.  For  it  conveys  a  troop  of 
images,  appealing  to  the  inner  eye,  instead  of 
the  outer.  In  the  second  place,  poetry  con 
tains  the  elements  of  music.  For  in  its  rhythm, 
its  rhyme,  its  music  of  many  sorts,  a  succession 
of  melodies  and  harmonies  are  heard  —  by  the 
inner  ear,  when  read  silently,  or  by  the  outer, 
when  read  aloud.  The  verse  form  is  most 
fitly  used,  therefore,  when  it  is  used  for  the  ex 
pression  of  thought  and  feeling  together;  of 
thought,  in  other  words,  which  is  aglow  with 
feeling,  and  feeling  which  is  illuminated  by 
thought.  It  is  equally  an  impertinence  to  use 
the  verse  form  —  that  is,  the  musical  form  — 
for  dry,  cold  ideas,  or  for  mere  vague  feeling, 
unlighted  by  thought.  The  former  is  for 
speech  unaccompanied  by  music  ;  the  latter  is 
for  music  unaccompanied  by  speech.  A  man 
may  say  —  not  sing  —  a  mathematical  demon 
stration  ;  he  may  sing  —  not  say  —  an  outburst 
of  emotion.  For  this  reason  instruments  are 
better  than  voices  for  great  music.  Or  if  the 
voice  must  be  used,  it  is  best  if  the  words  are 
in  a  foreign  tongue  which  is  unfamiliar  to  the 
listener.  In  this  way  the  speech  element  of  an 
opera,  nearly  always  foolish,  is  concealed  ;  and 
the  music  element,  when  really  good,  has  its 
opportunity.  It  is  conceivable,  to  be  sure,  that 


150          Literature  and  Criticism 

there  might  be  (as  Wagner  dreamed  and  seemed 
on  the  verge  of  accomplishing)  an  action  so 
high,  expressed  in  speech  so  noble  and  signifi 
cant,  that  it  would  not  belittle  its  accompany 
ing  music  in  making  it  limited  and  definite  in 
its  suggestion.  A  good  deal  of  our  modern 
verse  errs  in  the  reverse  direction  ;  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  mere  music,  —  flowing  rhythm,  and 
sounding  rhymes,  and  a  pretty  babble  of  in 
significant  ''words,  words,  words,"  —  expres 
sive,  thus,  of  some  vague  atmosphere  of  feeling, 
without  any  thought.  But  this  would  have 
been  more  fitly  expressed  in  music  proper  ;  it 
is  only  a  part,  and  the  lesser  part  of  the  re 
quirement  in  poetry. 

In  illustration  of  the  statement  that  poetry 
contains  in  itself  the  elements  of  the  arts  of 
form,  as  giving  a  succession  of  beautiful  images, 
we  may  take  a  single  passage  from  Longfellow's 
"  Evangeline."  Here,  close  together  (using 
the  poet's  own  words),  we  have  the  morning  of 
June  with  its  music  and  sunshine,  the  gleam  of 
water,  the  silvery  sand-bars,  the  dusky  arch 
and  trailing  mosses  of  the  cypress,  the  moon 
light  indistinctly  gleaming  through  the  ruined 
cedars,  the  pendulous  stairs  of  the  grapevines 
with  hummingbirds  rising  and  descending,  the 
measureless  prairie  at  night  with  the  fireflies 
floating  above  it,  the  southward  rivers  running 


Principles  of  Criticism  151 

to  the  sea  side  by  side  like  the  great  chords  of 
a  harp  in  loud  and  solemn  vibrations.  More 
over,  each  idea  brings  with  it  to  the  mind  a 
complex  of  associated  thought  and  emotion, 
and  not  merely  from  our  own  individual  life 
experience.  The  human  race  has  come  a  long 
way.  As  we  read  the  line  in  the  "  Lady  of  the 
Lake,"  — 

"  When  danced  the  moon  on  Monan's  rill," 

it  is  not  alone  the  intrinsic  beauty  of  the  scene 
that  interests  us.  We  could  imitate  the  effect, 
so  far  as  the  bodily  eye  is  concerned,  by  a 
candle  glancing  on  a  scrap  of  crinkled  tin.  Nor 
is  it  any  definite  association  of  our  own  past 
enjoyment  in  connection  with  such  a  scene. 
There  are  associations  —  as  Mr.  Herbert  Spen 
cer  has  pointed  out  —  too  vague  and  dim  to 
define  ;  faint  reverberations  of  whole  aeons  of 
human,  and  perhaps  of  animal,  experience. 
The  deep  forest  was  once  full  of  the  dread  of 
unknown  dangers  and  the  expectancy  of  un 
known  delights  ;  the  shadow  of  the  mountain 
had  for  man  the  chill  of  supernatural  visita 
tions  ;  by  the  moonlit  rill  the  savage  —  and, 
ages  before,  the  wilder  creature  of  the  woods  — 
sought  and  slew  his  prey,  or  sought  and  won 
his  mate. 

To  illustrate  the  inclusion  of  the  elements  of 


152          Literature  and  Criticism 

the  art  of  tone,  also,  in  poetry,  we  may  take 
the  same  poem,  "  Evangeline."  To  begin  with, 
the  metre  is  music.  The  accents,  following 
each  other  in  rhythmical  order,  give  us  not 
only  the  element  of  time,  such  as  a  metronome 
would  give,  but  a  veritable  tune,  as  well.  It 
we  recite  the  line,  — 

"When  she  had  passed  it  seemed  like  the  ceasing  of 
exquisite  music," 

we  find  not  only  that  it  is  capable  of  being 
written  in  bars  of  f  time,  with  eighth  and  dotted 
eighth  and  sixteenth  notes,  but  that  the  ac 
cented  tones  are  given  on  a  different  pitch, 
each  dactyl  making  a  cadence,  or  phrase,  of 
three  different  tones. 

These  lines  of  English  hexameter  (that  is, 
accent  hexameter)  seem  to  follow  each  other 
like  ocean  waves  on  the  shore.  The  first  half 
of  the  line  is  the  wave  rolling  in  ;  then  it  pauses, 
toppling  into  a  crest,  and  crumbles  down  into 
foam  in  the  last  half.  As  we  might  represent 
it,— 

"  Rolling,  then  rearing  its  crest,  and  foaming  and  falling 
in  thunder." 

So  wave  after  wave  of  the  sonorous  verse  rolls 
in,  timing  itself  (as  Dr.  Holmes  suggests  of 
another  metre)  to  the  very  ebb  and  flow  of  our 
blood  and  our  breathing :  a  phrase  to  each 
pulse-beat,  and  a  line  to  each  breath. 


Principles  of  Criticism  153 

The  rhyme  system  of  verse,  again,  is  entirely 
music.  There  are  three  sets  of  rhymes,  in 
reality  :  the  initial,  or  consonant  rhyme  (or 
alliteration)  ;  the  medial  rhyme,  or  chime  of 
the  vowels  in  the  interior  of  the  words  ;  and 
the  final  rhyme.  We  may  note,  first  of  all,  that 
as  in  rhythm,  so  in  rhyme,  we  have  the  prin 
ciple  that  lies  at  the  foundation  of  music, — 
unity  in  variety ;  the  greatest  total  of  conscious 
impression  being  received  through  chords,  — 
that  is,  through  a  variety  of  tones  made  possi 
ble  to  apprehend  by  their  relations  of  agree 
ment,  or  unity.  If  we  take  the  old  couplet 
(which  is  truly  poetry,  too,  as  being  wise  as 
well  as  musical),  — 

"  Love  me  little,  love  me  long, 
Is  the  burden  of  my  song," 

we  notice  first,  as  most  obvious,  the  final  rhyme. 
The  books  define  rhyme  badly,  as  being  the 
agreement  between  two  sounds.  That  really 
makes  but  half  a  rhyme.  We  must  have  the 
difference,  as  well  as  the  agreement ;  the  variety, 
as  well  as  the  unity.  In  other  words,  ong  and 
ong,  in  this  example,  are  not  rhymes  :  they  are 
identical  sounds  ;  they  constitute  a  unison,  not 
a  harmony.  But  long  and  song  are  rhymes, 
since  now  a  different  consonant  precedes  each. 
The  initial  rhyme  involves  the  same  prin 
ciple,  only  reversed  ;  the  unity  being  now  in 


154          Literature  and  Criticism 

the  consonants,  the  variety  in  the  following 
sounds.  The  important  part  which  this  initial 
rhyme  plays  in  verse  is  often  overlooked,  from 
the  circumstance  that  the  alliteration  is  so  com 
monly  concealed  ;  as  in  this  line  :  — 

"  He  was  already  at  rest,  and  she  longed  to  slumber 
beside  him." 

The  r  of  rest  rhymes  with  the  r  of  already,  the 
/  of  slumber  with  the  /  of  longed,  and  the  s  of 
beside  with  the  s  of  slumber,  though  all  these 
are  concealed  to  the  eye  by  not  being  visibly 
initial  letters.  This  consonant  rhyme,  by  the 
way,  addresses  the  mind  as  well  as  the  ear  (as 
might  be  expected  from  the  more  intellectual 
character  of  the  consonants)  ;  the  alliteration 
in  good  verse  always  striking  the  emphatic 
syllable,  and  (as  Mr.  John  Earle  neatly  ex 
presses  it)  marking  out  to  the  mind  "  the  crests 
of  the  thought,"  as  in  the  line  just  quoted. 

The  medial  rhyme,  or  chime  of  interior  vow 
els,  also  plays  a  concealed  part  in  the  music 
of  the  best  verse.  Taking  again  the  couplet, 
"  Love  me  little,"  etc.,  if  we  utter  the  vowels 
alone  we  shall  hear  their  chime.  Moreover, 
since  each  vowel  has  a  natural  pitch  of  its 
own,  by  whispering  the  vowels  in  these  lines 
vigorously,  we  shall  hear  a  distinct  tune  of  dif 
ferent  notes,  which  might  be  written  upon  a 
staff  in  musical  notation. 


Principles  of  Criticism  155 

The  best  verse  in  which  to  study  these  vari 
ous  musical  elements  is  that  of  Mother  Goose. 
And  this  for  two  reasons  :  first,  because  it  is  a 
kind  of  profanation  to  make  a  corpus  vilum  of 
good  poetry  for  dissection  ;  and  secondly  be 
cause  the  lines  of  Mother  Goose  have  been 
preserved  purely  on  account  of  this  very  per 
fection  of  musical  form,  having  had  no  other, 
or  little  other,  raison  d'etre.  Out  of  thousands 
of  jingles  repeated  to  children,  the  fittest  only 
have  survived,  and  these  are,  accordingly,  very 
perfect  specimens  so  far  as  the  outer  shell  of 
poetry  is  concerned.  A  college  class,  for  ex 
ample,  in  studying  verse  with  a  thoroughly 
scientific  analysis,  could  not  do  better  than  to 
provide  themselves  with  copies  of  this  immor 
tal  bard  for  class-room  use.  If  one  were  to 
exhaust  completely  the  possibilities  of  analysis 
of,  say,  this  quatrain, 

"  Old  King  Cole  was  a  jolly  old  soul, 
And  a  jolly  old  soul  was  he  ; 

He  called  for  his  pipe,  and  he  called  for  his  bowl, 
And  he  called  for  his  fiddlers  three," 

he  would  know  a  great  deal  about  the  very 
imperfectly  understood  science  of  English 
verse.1 

1  The  work  of  Sidney  Lanier  on  English  verse  may 
be  recommended  as  the  only  one  that  has  ever  made  any 
approach  to  a  rational  view  of  the  subject.  Nor  are  the 
standard  ones  overlooked  in  making  this  assertion. 


1 56         Literature  and  Criticism 

But  a  genuine  poem,  while  containing  (by  its 
images  to  the  inner  eye,  and  its  music  to  the 
inner  ear)  these  elements  of  the  lower  arts,  goes 
beyond  them  in  expressing  more  fully  than 
any  other  form  has  been  found  able  to  do  the 
soul  of  the  writer  to  the  soul  of  the  reader.  In 
this  way  it  stands  as  the  highest  species  of  its 
own  —  which  is  the  highest  —  genus,  the  art 
of  literature.  And  the  other  —  the  prose  — 
forms  of  literature  must  be  ranked  precisely 
according  to  this  power  of  expressiveness. 

We  might  draw  off  in  a  tabular  scheme  the 
different  forms  of  literature,  classified  on  this 
basis.  At  the  bottom  we  should  have  those 
written  works  which  are  books,  indeed,  but  not 
yet  literature ;  as  the  almanac,  the  arithmetic, 
the  receipt-book,  the  text-book  on  natural  sci 
ence.  These,  and  a  vast  number  of  others,  do 
not  belong  to  the  art  of  literature,  or  to  litera 
ture  proper,  simply  because  they  do  not  express 
the  writer,  and  therefore  have  no  power  (to 
come  back  to  our  test  of  criticism)  to  stir  or 
quicken  the  reader.  They  are  merely  fact- 
books.  Rising  a  little  higher  in  our  table  of 
forms,  we  may  put  down  certain  books  which, 
though  still  fact-books,  begin  to  convey  some 
thing  also  of  the  observer's  own  personality. 
Such  are  certain  books  of  travel,  or  of  the  higher 
natural  science.  They  begin  to  be  literature, 


Principles  of  Criticism  157 

because  they  begin  to  be  humanly  expressive. 
A  little  higher  in  our  tabular  scheme  will  come 
books  of  human  science,  wherein  the  writer  is 
more  apt  to  give  something  of  himself  (not 
narrowly,  as  an  individual,  but  as  one  repre 
senting  universal  human  nature)  together  with 
his  objective  results.  Especially  is  this  true 
as  we  rise  into  the  region  of  the  profounder 
human  problems,  where  our  books  are  fact- 
books,  to  be  sure,  but  the  "  facts  "  are  now  of 
such  breadth  and  importance  that  we  incline 
rather  to  call  them  "  truths." 

More  and  more  fitly  may  those  works  be 
called  truth-books  as  we  rise  to  the  region  of 
literature  proper.  Here,  also,  we  classify  and 
rank  according  to  expressive  power.  The  essay 
expresses  more  than  the  history,  because  the 
writer  is  more  free  to  reveal  his  own  inner  life 
in  his  work;  and  it  contributes  to  us,  of  course, 
just  in  proportion  to  what  it  takes  from  him. 
The  more  life  goes  in,  the  more  life  comes  out. 
And  above  the  essay  ranks  fiction,  on  this  same 
ground.  And  among  the  different  forms  of 
fiction  the  novel  stands  the  highest,  as  being 
the  epitome,  not  only  of  what  the  writer  has 
seen,  but  of  what  the  writer  has  lived  and  been 
and  now  is.  Highest  of  all,  as  we  have  said, 
is  the  poem ;  because  here  the  writer  felt  the 
most  freedom,  and  could  therefore  exert  the 


158  Literature  and  Criticism 

most  power.  Keble  was  perhaps  the  first  to 
point  out  that  the  verse  form  is  not  only  a  con 
cealer,  but  a  revealer.  That  is  to  say,  it  reveals 
just  because  the  writer  felt  that  he  was  con 
cealed.  The  mask  becomes  itself  the  most 
transparent  sort  of  window. 

And  which  form  of  poetry  shall  we  set  high 
est  by  our  test,  —  the  narrative,  the  dramatic, 
or  the  lyric  ? 

We  may  be  helped  to  answer  this  by  observ 
ing  a  fact,  which  is  either  a  mere  coincidence, 
or  goes  far  to  corroborate  our  view  of  the  true 
basis  of  our  valuation  of  literature.  It  is  the 
fact  that  just  in  proportion  with  the  increase  of 
expressive  power,  in  our  tabulated  scheme  of 
literary  forms,  goes  also  an  increase  in  perma 
nence  of  value  in  the  world.  The  mere  fact- 
books  are  superseded,  and  become  valueless. 
The  truth-books  become  more  and  more  of 
permanent  value  as  we  rise  to  their  higher  re 
gions.  And  we  are  most  apt  to  find  that  the 
thing  that  has  survived  time  and  storm  in  the 
world's  shifting  history  is  some  frail  bit  of  a 
lyric  poem ;  because  this  holds  in  its  crystal 
line  heart  the  life  of  a  man  ;  and  when  we  are 
dead  —  or  half  dead — spiritually,  out  breaks 
again  from  the  heart  of  the  crystal  that  spark 
of  abounding  life  which  is  the  thing  that  of  all 
others  we  desire. 


Principles  of  Criticism  159 

When  a  mind  expresses  in  a  book  its  mere 
perception  of  some  external  object,  it  is  not  yet 
literature.  Before  the  same  object  every  one's 
perception,  if  normal,  would  be  the  same.  The 
expression  of  it  in  writing  can  add  nothing  to 
our  inner  life  beyond  what  the  object  itself 
would  add.1  It  is  only  when  the  writer,  like 
the  coral  insect,  builds  himself  into  his  work, 
expressing  inner  states  of  thought,  feeling,  or 
purpose,  either  of  his  own  individuality  or, 
best  of  all,  of  the  universal  human  being,  that 
the  book  becomes  literature.  Literature,  for 
this  reason,  always  has  a  "  style  :  "  an  expres 
sion  characteristic  of  the  man,  the  reflex  of 
something  his  own ;  through  which,  at  least, 
the  truth  —  however  universal  —  had  to  pass. 
As  in  other  arts,  if  a  painter  exactly  repre 
sented  an  actual  laughing  child,  or  if  a  musi 
cian  exactly  copied  the  wailing  of  a  hurt  child, 
it  would  not  yet  be  art,  for  it  would  convey 
nothing  to  us  beyond  what  the  external  object 
itself  would  convey ;  so  in  literature,  if  a  poet 

1  This  bears  on  the  question  of  the  comparative  values 
of  natural  science  and  the  humanities  in  education.  A 
fish  in  a  book  can  be  expected  to  go  no  farther  toward 
educating  a  mind  than  a  fish  in  a  pool.  It  can  stimulate 
observation,  and  attract  a  dormant  attention,  and  reveal 
many  interesting  facts  about  the  non-human  world,  but 
that  is  all.  Whereas  a  man's  life  in  a  book  can  renew 
and  increase  the  whole  intellectual  and  spiritual  life. 


160  Literature  and  Criticism 

exactly  paints  in  words  a  white  rose,  it  may  be 
very  pretty,  but  it  is  not  yet  a  genuine  poem. 
But  let  him  give  us  the  rose,  plus  his  feeling 
and  thought  about  it,  —  sincerely  his,  but  based 
on  what  is  ours  also,  and  man's  universally,  — 
and  it  is  a  poem.  Or  let  it  be  a  fact  instead 
of  an  object,  —  say,  the  falling  of  an  apple  to 
the  ground  in  a  garden.  When  a  writer  de 
scribes  it  just  as  it  is,  and  nothing  beyond  it, 
we  say  it  is  a  "fact  "  that  the  apple  falls.  When 
he  gives  it  to  us  plus  some  activity  of  his  rea 
son  which  links  it  with  the  revolving  moon, 
expressing  now  the  law  of  universal  gravitation, 
we  say  it  is  a  great  "truth."  And  if.  in  its 
expression,  he  adds  also  the  free  play  of  his 
own  mind  and  feeling  upon  it,  he  may  give  us 
a  work  of  pure  literature ;  perhaps  —  most 
likely  in  this  case  —  a  lyric  poem. 

The  secret  of  all  art,  then,  is  simply  this 
open  secret :  that  it  is  the  giver  of  what  we 
most  of  all  desire,  abounding  life.  It  draws 
upon  an  inexhaustible  supply.  For  it  is  not 
merely  the  artist's  own  individual  spirit  which 
is  imparted  to  us  ;  the  greater  the  genius,  the 
more  deeply  his  fountain  drinks  of  the  tides 
of  the  common  humanity.  And  it  is  genius 
alone  that  knows  to  stir  in  us  those  truths, 
emotions,  impulses,  that  are  wrought  into  our 
inmost  being  by  the  long  race  experience.  We 


Principles  of  Criticism  161 

are  seldom  thoroughly  awake  and  alive.  Like 
the  little  fitful  spire  of  violet  flame  that  we 
sometimes  see  hovering  and  playing  over  the 
surface  of  a  coal  fire,  so  our  consciousness  plays 
about  the  different  tracts  of  the  otherwise  dor 
mant  mind :  now  here,  now  there ;  now  sensa 
tion,  now  memory,  now  one  or  another  of  the 
emotions,  starts  for  the  instant  into  fluttering 
life,  then  darkens  back  into  unconsciousness. 
What  we  desire  is  the  glow  and  illumination 
of  the  whole  spirit ;  and  it  is  art,  and  espe 
cially  the  literary  art,  that  best  ministers  to  this 
desire. 

It  is  not  enough  that  a  picture  or  a  novel 
or  a  poem  should  move  us :  the  question  is, 
What  does  it  move  in  us  ?  How  much  of  the 
whole  possible  range  of  our  inner  life  does  it 
awaken  ?  Nor  is  mere  intensity  of  impression 
any  sufficient  test.  For  one  must  inquire, 
Whither  does  this  tend,  —  toward  further  re 
newal  of  full  existence,  or  toward  reaction  and 
stagnation?  Some  feelings  are  kindled  only 
to  smoulder  away  and  leave  dead  ashes  on  an 
empty  hearth  within  the  spirit ;  others  tend  to 
kindle  on  and  on,  awakening  thought,  rousing 
to  vigorous  action.  Nor  are  the  most  easily 
moved  activities  always  the  most  important 
ones  in  the  effect  of  art  and  literature.  Laugh 
ter  and  tears  lie  on  the  surface  of  the  mind  : 


162  Literature  and  Criticism 

the  gleam  and  the  dusk  may  interchange 
quickly  at  any  passing  cloud.  It  is  the  great 
motive  powers  deep  down  in  the  soul  that  most 
contribute  to  abounding  life,  and  whose  awak 
ening  most  surely  proves  the  presence  of  gen 
ius  :  the  sense  of  right  and  justice ;  the  feel 
ings  of  pity,  awe,  aspiration  ;  love,  too,  —  not 
the  sodden  sort  of  love,  which  is  dear  to  the 
decorative  poets  in  their  maudlin  moods,  but 
mother-love,  and  father-love,  and  menschen-licbe, 
and  love  of  friend,  and  lover's  love,  that  de 
sires  not  selfish  possession,  but  the  infinite 
welfare  of  its  object,  and  for  this  will  die  or 
will  live. 

The  test,  then,  for  literature,  as  for  all  art, 
is  its  life-giving  power.  In  the  essay,  for  ex 
ample,  perfection  would  consist  in  giving  us, 
through  that  free  and  unpremeditated  play  of 
the  whole  bevy  of  spiritual  faculties  (which  is 
the  characteristic  of  this  literary  form),  the 
widest  excursions  possible  to  the  mind's  lighter 
and  leisure  hours.  In  the  novel,  it  would  con 
sist  in  imparting  to  us  profound  life-truths, 
pure  emotions,  noble  intentions,  in  connection 
with  the  opportunity  to  re-live,  or  live  in  im 
agination,  the  most  significant  experiences  of 
human  existence.  In  the  poem,  the  require 
ment  is  that  it  shall  be  full  of  lovely  images, 
that  it  shall  be  in  every  way  musical,  that  it 


Principles  of  Criticism  163 

shall  bring  about  us  troops  of.  high  and  pure 
associations,  —  the  very  words  so  chosen  that 
they  come  "  trailing  clouds  of  glory  "  in  their 
suggestiveness ;  and  in  its  matter,  that  it  shall 
bring  us  both  thought  and  feeling,  for  whose 
intermingling  the  musical  form  of  speech  alone 
is  fitted ;  and  that,  coining  from  a  pure  and 
rich  nature,  it  shall  leave  us  purer  and  richer 
than  it  found  us. 

Wordsworth  said  a  profound  thing,  and  said 
it  very  simply,  as  he  knew  how  to  do,  when  he 
gave  as  the  criterion  of  a  book  that  "  it  should 
make  us  wiser,  better,  or  happier."  And  if  it 
be  the  greatest  sort  of  book,  will  it  not  do  all 
three  ? 


A    PRIVATE   LETTER 

BERKELEY,  August  21,  1880. 
MY  DEAR  FELLOW  BEING  (for  really  that  is 
the  only  relation  that  gives  me  any  right  to 
address  you),  —  I  was  reading  a  story  of  yours 
the  other  day  in  a  certain  magazine,  and  was 
struck  by  a  little  mistake  in  grammar  that  you 
contrived  to  repeat  a  good  many  times.  I 
knew  you  were  a  young  writer,  and  it  was  plain 
that  you  were  one  of  great  promise ;  and  it 
seemed  to  me  a  pity  that  a  pen  capable  of  such 
touches  of  the  genuine  literary  power  should 
slip  into  bad  English,  especially  into  a  mistake 
so  uninterestingly  common,  so  newspapery,  as 
it  were,  —  a  sin  without  any  tang  of  eccentri 
city  to 'spice  it.  Of  course  I  feel  a  painful  deli 
cacy  in  convicting  you  of  bad  grammar,  and  I 
could  n't  think  of  speaking  to  you  publicly 
about  it.  I  would  n't  for  the  world  have  any 
body  know  I  meant  you,  not  even  yourself  — 
for  certain.  That  is  why  I  write  thus  privately 
to  you  about  it.  Not  that  mistakes  in  gram 
mar  are  such  blood-curdling  things,  in  them 
selves,  but  there  is  this  harm  in  them  :  they 


A  Private  Letter  165 

catch  the  attention  and  so  distract  one's  mind 
from  the  real  matter  in  hand.  Have  you  ever 
noticed  how,  when  the  eloquent  B-an-rges  is 
preaching,  sometimes  in  the  most  impressive 
passage  an  unfortunate  mispronunciation  hits 
your  ear  and  throws  the  whole  train  of  thought 
and  emotion  off  the  track  ?  Just  so,  my  dear 
friend  (for  I  begin  to  feel  very  good-natured  to 
you  now  that  I  am  in  the  way  of  being  abusive 
—  there  is  a  great  deal  of  human-nature  in 
people),  when  I  was  reading  your  charming 
story,  just  as  my  feelings  were  beginning  to 
kindle  in  that  passage,  you  know,  where  —  for 
the  first  time  —  with  —  suddenly  this  gram 
matical  blunder  exploded  under  my  rapt  atten 
tion  with  a  bang,  and  scattered  my  emotional 
tension  to  the  winds. 

Besides,  there  is  the  terrible  inference.  Don't 
you  know  how  a  bad  slip  in  the  refinements  of 
English  syntax,  coming  from  some  newly  intro 
duced  person,  and  coming,  too,  with  the  fatal 
smoothness  of  habitual  use,  opens  up  to  you 
in  a  second  whole  vistas  of  inference  and  of 
undesirable  probabilities  for  an  acquaintance  ? 
Just  so  you  will  be  sending  a  manuscript  some 
day  to  the  Coastian,  or  the  Scribbler's  Maga 
zine,  or  the  Ocean  Monthly ;  and  the  editor  will 
pick  it  up  from  a  two-bushel  basket  of  such, 
and  his  eye,  flaming  with  the  preternatural  fires 


166  Literature  and  Criticism 

of  haste  and  intellect,  will  snatch  at  a  page  or 
two  of  your  trembling  and  otherwise  innocent 
darling,  and  will  pounce  on  this  identical  sole 
cism.  It  will  be  enough  for  him ;  for  the  power 
of  inference  must  needs  be  swift  and  savage  in 
a  hurried  editor  in  prolific  literary  regions. 

But  you  are  impatient  to  know  what  all  this 
is  about.  It  is  about  the  improper  use,  yea, 
the  inveterate  snarling  up  and  inextricable  en 
tanglement  of  the  uses  of  shall  and  will*  should 
and  would.  "Oh," you  say,  "is  that  all !  Why, 
everybody  makes  mistakes  in  them"  No,  in 
fact,  not  everybody.  You  will  find  that  our 
best  writers  never  use  these  Ijttle  auxiliaries 
improperly.  Indeed,  it  is  the  absolutely  per 
fect  discrimination  between  such  words,  the 
subtle  sense  of  the  least  delicate  flavor  or 
ethereal  aroma  of  difference  between  such  im 
palpable  significations,  that  gives  one  charm  to 
their  style.  I  admit,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
occasionally  the  particular  auxiliaries  in  ques 
tion  are  maltreated  by  otherwise  respectable 
writers.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  Hibernicism  that  has 
crept  into  use,  in  this  country  particularly.  But 
it  will  be  well  for  you  and  me  to  remember  that 
only  old  and  successful  authors  can  afford  to 
write  badly. 

Suppose,  then,  that  once  for  all  we  look  into 
this  matter,  and  know  the  rights  of  these  four 


A  Private  Letter  167 

small  words.  It  is  not  difficult,  but  it  will  re 
quire  a  bit  of  research  into  English  grammar. 
You  hate  grammar,  I  suppose  ?  That  is  right. 
I  never  knew  any  one  to  love  it :  at  least  the 
thing  that  goes  under  that  name  in  the  schools. 
Of  course  no  one  can  help  liking  the  real  study 
of  grammar,  the  science  of  the  subtlest  work 
ings  of  the  human  mind  dealing  with  the  sym 
bols  of  expression  ;  but  few  schoolboys  ever 
get  a  taste  of  that.  They  are  dragged  by  the 
ear  through  such  text-books  as  that  of  G — Id 
Br — n,  and  forever  after  hate  every  person  and 
everything  that  was  ever  associated  with  the 
subject,  —  the  desk  at  which  they  recited  it, 
and  the  smell  of  the  particular  flower  that  came 
in  at  the  window  where  they  tried  to  learn  it, 
and  the  teacher  that  drove  them  mad  with  the 
reiteration  of  its  meaningless  maunderings. 
You  will  hardly  believe  it,  but  there  really 
are,  though,  of  late,  several  grammars  written 
by  scholars,  intelligible,  sensible,  delightful 
books.  (Of  course  the  School  Boards  have 
not  introduced  them  :  they  only  consider  the 
bindings  of  books  and  their  relative  cheap 
ness.)  Such,  for  instance,  are  Professor  Whit 
ney's  "  Essentials  of  English  Grammar  "  and 
Professor  Bain's  "  Higher  Grammar." 

We  will  begin,  then,  by  trying  to  forget  all 
about  the  "potential  mood"  and  other  devices 


168  Literature  and  Criticism 

of  Satan,  found  in  the  ordinary  grammars,  and 
go  back  to  the  origin  of  these  four  little  "  use 
ful  troubles,"  ska  I!  and  should,  will  and  would. 
You  know  that  a  thousand  years  ago,  in  good 
King  Alfred's  time,  the  English  people  spoke 
our  mother  tongue  in  the  form  which  we  now 
call  Anglo-Saxon,  but  which  they  themselves  al 
ways  called  "Englisc/' —  "English,"  as  it  really 
was,  only  without  the  later  accessions  from 
the  French,  Latin,  etc.  In  this  original  form 
of  English  the  primitive  verb  had  (besides  our 
familiar  imperative,  infinitive,  and  participle) 
only  two  moods :  the  indicative,  to  express  a 
fact  (as,  "/  was  there"};  and  the  conditional 
(or  subjunctive),  to  express  an  idea  of  a  fact, 
merely  conceived  in  the  mind  (as,  "  if  I  were 
there").  In  the  indicative,  or  fact  mood,  the 
tenses  (there  were  only  two,  present  and  past ; 
as,  am  and  was)  meant  time ;  in  the  subjunc 
tive,  or  idea  mood  (since  mere  mental  concep 
tions  are  not  tied  up  to  time),  they  only  meant 
different  relations  of  doubtfulness  (as,  "  if  ever 
I  be  a  king"  or,  "  if  I  were  king  at  any  time  "). 
Take,  for  example,  the  statement  of  fact,  "  //  is 
wrong;"  this  is  the  indicative  mood,  and  the 
present  tense  means  present  time,  to-day.  Or, 
"  if  it  is  wrong,  he  is  not  aware  of  it ; "  this, 
also,  is  the  indicative  mood,  in  spite  of  the 
"  if"  because,  although  we  do  not  assert  it  as 


A  Private  Letter  169 

a  fact,  we  assume  it  to  be  a  fact,  for  the  time 
being,  as  you  see  by  the  conclusion  ;  and  ac 
cordingly  the  present  tense  means  present  time, 
as  before.  But  suppose  we  say,  "  if  it  be  wrong, 
he  will  not  do  it."  This,  you  see,  is  the  sub 
junctive  mood,  expressing  a  mere  idea,  as  be 
ing  possibly  true  ;  and  the  present  tense  does 
not  mean  time  (it  is  future  time,  if  anything), 
but  mere  contingency.  Again,  take  the  state 
ment,  "he  was  wrong;"  it  is  indicative  mood, 
stating  a  fact,  and  the  past  tense  means  past 
time,  yesterday.  Or,  "  if 'he  was  wrong,  he  has 
probably  discovered  it ;  "  this,  also,  is  the  in 
dicative  mood,  in  spite  of  the  "  if"  because 
we  assume  the  fact  to  exist,  as  the  conclusion 
shows  j  and  accordingly  the  past  tense  means 
past  time.  But  suppose  we  say,  "  even  if  he 
were  wrong,  he  would  not  discover  it."  This, 
plainly,  is  the  subjunctive  mood,  expressing  a 
mere  supposition  ;  and  the  past  tense  does  not 
mean  past  time  —  indeed,  it  may  refer  to  any 
other  time  whatever  except  the  past.  What, 
then,  does  it  mean  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  it 
means  to  throw  the  idea  still  farther  away  from 
reality  than  the  present  tense  would  do,  imply 
ing  that,  while  his  being  wrong  is  a  supposi 
tion,  it  is  an  improbable  supposition  ?  And 
what  more  suitable  for  this  meaning  than  to 
push  it  back  into  the  past,  where  there  can  be 


1 70  Literature  and  Criticism 

no  "  if "  or  peradventure  about  things  at  all ; 
where  (as  an  old  saying  runs)  "  't  is  as  't  is, 
and  't  can't  be  any  'tis-er." 

At  this  point,  my  dear  young  novelist  (for 
that  is  what  you  are  coming  to,  if  the  fates  per 
mit),  you  are  beginning  to  suspect  that  you 
have  been  basely  deceived.  You  began  to 
read  my  letter  with  the  alluring  expectation  of 
something  genial  if  not  absolutely  frolicsome, 
and  here  we  are  in  the  thorny  wilderness  of  — 
(we  will  not  speak  the  loathed  word)  —  the 
study  that  "teaches  the  art  of  speaking  and 
writing  the  English  language  correctly."  (As  if 
it  really  ever  did  that !  When  everybody  knows 
that  that  art,  if  learned  at  all,  is  learned  at  the 
breakfast-table,  and  the  mother's  knee,  and 
what  we  Californians  still,  by  poetic  license, 
call  the  "fireside."  Then,  what  is  the  use  of 

all  this  long  — ?  (Yes,  I  know  you  are 

calling  it  that.)  Because  there  are  really  a  few 
idioms  in  our  much  Hibernicized,  and  Scotti 
cized,  and  Gallicized,  and  Missouriated,  and 
Downeastercized  mother  tongue  that  cannot  be 
known  with  perfect  confidence  without  going 
to  the  very  roots  of  the  matter.) 

Know,  then,  that  shall  and  will  were  two 
Anglo-Saxon  verbs  (shall  being  of  the  form 
seeal,  just  as  our  word  ship  was  originally  scip, 
with  the  c  pronounced  as  £).  These  were  not 


A  Private  Letter  171 

auxiliary  verbs,  but  genuine  independent  verbs  ; 
"ic  wille  "  meaning  "  I  wish"  or  "  I  determine" 
and  "  ic  sceal"  meaning  "  I  owe"  or  "  I ought" 
In  the  Anglo-Saxon  version  of  the  Parable  of 
the  Unjust  Steward,  the  question,  "  How  muck 
owest  thou  ? "  is  rendered  "  Hti  micel  scealt 
thu  ?  "  This  signification  lasted  to  Chaucer's 
time,  who  writes,  "  that  faith  I  shall  to  God.'* 
And  Mr.  Earle  (in  his  "  Philology  of  the  Eng 
lish  Tongue")  says  that  in  one  of  the  old  coun 
try  dialects  a  child  would  still  say,  if  asked  to 
run  of  an  errand,  "  I  will  if  I  shall ; "  i.  e.  "  I 
am  willing  to  if  I  ought  to." 

These  two  verbs,  to  shall  and  to  will,  natu 
rally  came  to  be  used  very  often  with  the  in 
finitive  mood  (i.  e.  the  noun  form)  of  other 
verbs,  this  infinitive  being  the  object  of  the 
mental  act  of  shalling  or  willing  (owing  or  wish 
ing).  For  example,  "  ic  wille  leomian  Englisc  " 
meant  "  /  will  to  learn  (or,  I  will  the  learning 
of)  English."  Just  so  with  shall ;  "  ic  sceal 
leornian  "  meant  "  /  owe  the  learning"  or,  "  / 
ought  the  to-learn" 

You  see,  therefore,  the  fundamental  dis 
tinction  between  these  two  words  (and  it  gov 
erns  every  case  of  their  apparently  arbitrary 
use).  Shalling  involves  the  idea  of  influence 
or  pressure  or  obligation,  from  without ;  willing 
involves  the  idea  of  self-determination,  from 


1 72  Literature  and  Criticism 

\vithin.  This  would  be,  if  possible,  still  more 
evident,  if  I  dared  to  ask  you  to  plunge  one 
fathom  deeper  into  the  inky  sea  of  historical 
grammar ;  for  the  oracles  of  these  abysmal 
regions  tell  us  that  the  present  shall  is  itself 
the  past  tense  of  an  original  old  fossil  verb 
sculan,  meaning  "  to  get  in  debt."  (Grimm 
says,  from  an  ancient  present  with  the  meaning 
44  to  kill  ; "  the  past  tense  meaning,  therefore, 
44  I  have  killed,  and  have  to  pay  the  legal 
fine.")  The  past  tense  signified,  then,  "  I  have 
got  in  debt,"  i.  e.  "  I  am  under  the  pressure 
of  an  external  obligation,"  or,  "  I  owe."  You 
perceive,  now,  the  absurdity  in  the  Hiberni- 
cism,  "  I  will  be  obliged  to  refuse  your  re 
quest  ; "  for  this  means,  "  I  wish,  or  will,  to 
be  obliged  to  refuse  it."  What  we  desire  to 
express  is  our  being  under  the  outside  pressure 
of  circumstances ;  so  we  say,  properly,  "  I  shall 
be  obliged." 

But,  you  understand,  in  such  an  example  as 
this  last,  where  hardly  anything  but  mere  fu 
turity  is  expressed,  we  are  outrunning  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  usage.  It  was  only  in  later  times  that 
this  grew  up.  You  can  see  how,  since  willing 
to  do  an  act,  and  feeling  a  pressure  to  do  an 
act,  are  both  likely  to  result  in  the  future  doing 
of  it,  there  would  come  about  a  habit  of  ex 
pressing  mere  future  expectation  by  these  com- 


A  Private  Letter  173 

binations.  And  it  soon  came  to  be  felt  as  an 
instinct  of  courtesy,  in  expressing  a  future  act, 
to  speak  humbly  in  the  first  person,  as  if  about 
to  do  it  because  of  outside  pressure,  —  "I  shall 
do  it,"  while  the  second  and  third  persons  are 
politely  represented  as  doing  it  of  their  own 
free  will,  —  "  you  will,"  or  "  he  will,"  do  it. 
For  instance,  "  I  shall  pay  my  just  debts  "  is  as 
if  one  said,  "  not  that  it 's  any  virtue  in  me, 
but  I  must ;  "  while  "  you  will  pay  your  just 
debts,"  implies  that  of  course  you  wish  to,  and 
would,  whether  compelled  or  not. 

There  are  two  apparent  exceptions,  but  they 
are  really  only  further  illustrations  of  this 
original  meaning  of  the  words  :  in  the  inter 
rogative  form,  we  use  "shall"  for  the  second 
person,  because  "  will"  would  ask  for  consent 
or  a  promise  ;  and  in  quotation  we  use  "  shall" 
for  all  persons,  because  the  person  is  repre 
sented  as  speaking  and  saying,  in  the  first 
person,  "  I  shall." 

So  much  for  expressing  mere  futurity ;  but 
of  course  where  determination  is  to  be  ex 
pressed,  the  case  is  just  reversed.  Here  the 
first  person  says,  " I  will"  and  the  second  and 
third  are  represented  as  dominated  by  this  out 
side  determination,  —  "you  shall  do  it,"  ''he 
shall  do  it."  (By  the  way.  the  phrase,  "  I 
won't"  is  such  an  exceedingly  valuable  one, 


174  Literature  and  Criticism 

morally,  that  it  is  worth  noting  here  that  this 
is  an  abbreviation  of  a  good  old  form,  "  I  wol 
not.") 

And  now  shall  we  briefly  explore  the  matter 
of  "  should  "  and  "  would  "  ?  For  to  tell  the 
truth,  since  this  is  a  strictly  private  letter,  and 
you  don't  even  know  that  it  is  you  I  am  talk 
ing  to,  one  may  frankly  say  that  in  their  usage, 
also,  there  were  grievous  wrongs. 

Mark  you,  then,  this  same  "  shall "  had  in 
Anglo-Saxon  a  past  tense  "sceolde"  should; 
and  "will"  had  a  past  tense  "woldc"  would. 
These,  also,  were  at  first  not  auxiliaries,  but 
independent  verbs,  and  meant  as  thus :  "  ic 
sceolde  leornian,"  "  I  owed  it  (yesterday)  to 
learn  ; "  "  ic  wolde  leornian"  "  I  willed  the 
learning  of  it."  The  same  forms  were  used 
in  the  past  tense  (so-called)  of  the  subjunctive, 
but  here  was  expressed  not  a  fact,  but  the 
mere  mental  idea  of  a  fact;  and  the  past  tense 
meant  not  past  time  (future,  rather  if  any 
thing),  but  doubtfulness.  And  soon,  just  as 
shafting  and  willing  lost  much  of  their  inde 
pendent  meaning,  and  came  to  express  mere 
futurity,  so  shouhiing  and  moulding  came  to  ex 
press  merely  doubtful  or  conditional  futurity, 
and  were  used  with  other  verbs  as  auxiliaries. 
The  indicative  past  was  lost,  except  in  the 
single  case  of  a  statement  like  this  :  "  He  tried 


A  Private  Letter  175 

to  prevent  me,  but  /  would  do  it "  —  where  the 
past  tense  means  past  time,  and  the  verb  car 
ries  its  original  meaning.  But  the  subjunctive 
past  is  the  one  we  use  so  commonly  and  some 
times  misuse  so  innocently.  It  occurs  in  con 
ditional  sentences,  and  the  usage  is  different  in 
the  two  clauses.  For  example,  "  If  he  should 
come,  I  should  go."  In  the  condition  clause, 
the  usage  requires  "  should "  for  all  persons ; 
in  the  conclusion  clause,  it  requires  "should" 
for  the  first  person,  "would"  for  the  second 
and  third.  That  is  to  say,  for  any  given  per 
son  the  same  verb  is  used,  in  the  present  to 
express  fact  futurity  ("  /  shall  go,  you  will  go, 
he  will  go"),  and  in  the  past  to  express  doubt 
ful  futurity  ("If  it  happened,  I  should  go,  you 
would  go,  he  would  go  ").  The  same  reasons 
of  courtesy  apply  to  the  distinction  of  persons, 
as  in  the  case  of  shall  and  will. 

Here,  also,  there  are  two  apparent  excep 
tions  :  i.  We  say,  "  I  would  if  I  were  you,"  or, 
"I  wouldn't  do  that,"  using  "would"  instead 
of  "should,"  because  a  flavor  of  its  original 
meaning  is  what  we  require  here,  namely,  wish 
or  preference.  And  we  say,  "  I  would  like  to 
help  you,"  using  "would"  instead  of  "should" 
for  the  same  reason ;  for  we  mean,  "  I  should 
wish  (to  like)  to  help  you  (if  there  were  any 
use  of  wishing)."  Just  so  we  say,  "  I  would 


176  Literature  and  Criticism 

he  were  here,"  which  differs  from  "  I  wish  he 
were  here  "  only  as  being  subjunctive  (shown 
by  the  fact  that  the  past  tense  does  not  mean 
past  time),  and  so  expressing  only  a  mere  idea 
of  wishing,  like  "  I  could  wish  he  were  here  (if 
there  were  any  use  in  it)."  2.  We  say,  "  You 
(or  he)  should  do  it,"  meaning  "You  ought  to." 
Here,  also,  the  original  meaning  of  the  word  is 
introduced.  Only  one  would  expect  the  pre 
sent  tense  "shall ;"  but  this  had  already  been 
appropriated  for  the  future.  Besides,  there 
seems  to  be  an  instinct  to  throw  this  idea  into 
the  subjunctive  past  (or  past  of  unreality  and 
timelessness),  as  we  see  by  the  equivalent 
expression  "he  ought"  (which  is  the  past  of 
"owe");  or,  better  still,  by  a  colloquialism 
which  pushes  the  idea  still  farther  off  into  the 
past-past,  or  pluperfect,  notwithstanding  that 
the  thought  is  still,  if  of  any  time  at  all,  of 
future  time,  —  "  he  \l  (he  had)  ought  'o  do  it" 

But  at  this  point  you  will  doubtless  throw 
down  this  unoffending  screed,  with  the  ejacu 
lation  that  you  knew  something  about  it  before, 
but  now  you  are  all  at  sea.  Well,  that  is  the 
clanger  of  a  little  knowledge.  But,  my  dear 
friend,  if  you  will  go  carefully  through  Pro 
fessor  March's  Anglo-Saxon  and  Comparative 
Grammar,  and  Professor  Bain's  Higher  and 
his  Composition  Grammar,  following  them  up 


A  Private  Letter  177 

with  Professor  Lounsbury's  "  History  of  the 
English  Language,"  and  will  then  confine  your 
light  reading  for  a  year  to  the  very  best  au 
thors,  rigorously  eschewing  all  newspapers  (ex 
cept  that  exceedingly  cultured  and  intellectual 
one  whose  editors  may  happen  to  be  reading 
this  remark),  I  promise  you  that  you  will  then 
begin  to  be  ready  to  enjoy  entering  on  the 
study  of  these  things. 

Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  mat 
ter,  in  a  practical  table  (and,  now  I  think  of  it, 
you  might  skip  what  you  have  read  up  to  this 
point,  and  begin  here). 

For  expressing  mere  futurity  (the  plural  in 
all  cases  like  the  singular) :  — 

I  shall, 
You  will, 
He  will. 

For  interrogation  as  to  mere  futurity  :  — 

[Am  I  going  to  ?] 
Shall  you  ? 
Will  he  ? 

For  expressing  determination  :  — 

I  will, 
You  shall, 
He  shall. 

For  expressing  doubtful  or  conditional  ideas 
(future  or  timeless),  in  the  condition  :  — 


178  Literature  and  Criticism 

If  I  should, 
If  you  should, 
If  he  should. 

In  the  conclusion  :  — 

I  should, 
You  would, 
He  would. 

For  expressing  wish  or  willingness  or  prefer 
ence,  in  this  softened,  semi-conditional  form:  — 

I  would  (if  I  were  you), 
I  would  (like  to  do  it), 
I  would  (he  were  here). 

For  expressing  duty  or  obligation  :  — 

I  should  (study,  but  don't  want  to), 
You  should, 
He  should. 

Meantime,  my  dear  young  author,  "  quid  re- 
fert  Caio  utrum"  etc.,  that  is  to  say,  what  dif 
ference  does  it  make  to  Genius  whether  it 
speak  precisely  in  the  tongue  of  common  mor 
tals  ?  I  know  that,  in  point  of  fact,  you  will 
always  enjoy  writing,  and  I  shall  always  enjoy 
reading  your  stories  ;  indeed,  you  shall  go  on 
writing  them,  and  I  will  go  on  reading  them, 
even  though  you  should  not  use  "  would  "  as 
you  should,  or  as  you  would  if  you  should  use 
"  would  "  and  "  should  "  as  Shakespeare  or 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  would. 


MANAGEMENT  OF  THE  MIND  WHILE 
HEARING   MUSIC 

HAT  is  the  best  thing  to  do  with  the 
mind  when  listening  to  music  ?  "  Do 
nothing  with  it,"  some  one  may  reply  ; 
"  let  it  take  care  of  itself."  But  this  implies  a 
mistaken  idea  as  to  its  ways.  It  seldom  does, 
in  point  of  fact,  take  care  of  itself.  It  is  bound 
to  follow  the  successive  suggestions  either  of 
certain  outside  impressions,  or  of  certain  inner 
impressions  which  also  had  originally  an  exter 
nal  source.  One  may  as  well  choose  a  little 
among  these.  Surely  we  might  better  direct 
the  mental  panorama  by  some  voluntary  choice 
than  to  have  it  directed  by  the  accidental  sight 
of  a  grotesque  face  in  the  audience,  or  the  odd 
bowing  of  some  one  of  the  second  violins.  Does 
it  make  the  sailing  of  a  summer  sea  any  the 
less  idly  luxurious  to  touch  the  helm  lightly 
from  time  to  time  ? 

Now  there  are  several  ways  open  to  choice 
in    the   management   of    the    mind's   delicate 


180  Music 

steering  apparatus,  on  such  an  occasion  as  the 
hearing  of  fine  music.  The  worst  way,  no 
doubt,  is  to  gaze  fixedly  at  the  performers,  and 
so  let  the  eye  cheat  the  ear  out  of  half  its 
enjoyment.  This  is  the  besetting  temptation 
of  the  "distinguished  amateur," who  is  inclined 
to  give  his  whole  attention  to  the  visible  han 
dling  of  whatever  instrument  he  himself  may 
happen  to  play.  At  a  recent  concert  I  noticed 
that  my  neighbor  riveted  his  interest,  during 
a  whole  splendid  movement  of  the  symphony, 
on  the  agile  gymnastics  of  one  of  the  double- 
basses.  But  this  is  not  so  ill-advised  as  the 
trick  some  people  have  of  staring  at  a  singer, 
and  even  with  an  opera-glass,  during  a  whole 
song.  What  can  they  carry  away  in  the  mem 
ory  but  a  visual  image  of  a  wonderful  openness 
of  countenance,  a  kind  of  labio-dental  display  ? 
I  have  always  liked  to  close  my  eyes  during 
any  passage  of  orchestral  music  to  which  I 
wished  to  lend  special  attention.  It  is  sur 
prising  what  sensitiveness  and  grasp  this  in 
stantly  gives  to  the  auditory  power.  Some 
times,  in  a  dark  corner  under  the  gallery,  one 
may  indulge  himself  in  the  luxury.  But  on 
Kant's  immortal  doctrine  that  one  should  do 
only  those  things  which  all  may  do,  this  closing 
of  the  eyes  at  a  concert  hardly  seems  proper 
in  the  body  of  the  house.  Would  it  not  look 


Management  of  the  Mind          181 

queer  if  we  all  sat  that  way  ?  ("  Look  queer 
to  whom,  if  everybody's  eyes  were  shut  ? " 
Well,  to  the  gentlemanly  ushers ;  and  the  re 
porters,  whose  eyes  are  always  open  ;  and  the 
cornet  and  the  bassoon,  in  their  lucid  inter 
vals.)  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  actually 
to  close  the  outward  eye.  We  may  select  some 
peg  on  which  to  hang  it,  so  to  speak,  where  no 
distracting  image  will  interrupt  our  reverie. 
The  middle  of  the  back  of  some  quiet  person 
in  front  of  us  will  generally  do.  Or  we  may 
happen  to  have  that  convenient  faculty,  pos 
sessed  by  so  many,  of  fixing  the  bodily  eye  on 
a  given  point,  while  the  mind's  eye  is  gradually 
withdrawn  leagues  and  leagues  behind  it. 

There  are  two  opposite  ways,  in  particular, 
open  to  the  mind  for  its  excursions  during 
music.  It  may  either  let  itself  become  engaged 
in  dreams  of  one's  own  personal  destiny,  mem 
ories  of  the  past,  fantastically  intermingled,  or 
dreams  of  "what  hath  never  been,  and  what 
can  never  be  ; "  or  it  may  go  out  of  itself  into 
the  life-dramas  of  others.  Which  is  the  better 
way  ?  For  example,  in  listening  to  one  of 
those  orchestral  duets  of  Rubinstein's,  one  may 
either  disregard  the  composer's  indication  in 
the  title,  weaving  his  own  personal  episodes  at 
will  from  the  changes  of  the  chords  ;  or  he 
may  occupy  his  imagination  with  the  relations 


182  Music 

of  the  suggested  Toreador  and  Andalouse ;  or 
he  may  hear  only  the  far-off  voices  of  well- 
known  mortals  and  their  perplexing  fates ;  or, 
finally,  the  music  may  but  breathe  an  ethereal 
essence  of  human  life  universal,  too  elusive  for 
any  individual  incarnation.  The  question  is 
like  that  which  confronts  the  poet :  Shall  he 
sing  his  own  joys  and  woes,  or  shall  he  create 
exterior  dramatic  idyls  ?  Shall  he  follow  the 
method  of  Byron  or  of  Browning  ? 

"  I  am  never  merry,"  said  Jessica,  "when  I 
hear  sweet  music ; "  and  her  Lorenzo  was  no 
philosopher,  and  could  give  but  the  shallowest 
explanation  of  the  fact.  Rossetti's  "  Mono- 
chord,"  if  she  could  have  waited  so  long  for  it, 
might  have  helped  her  to  a  better  one  :  — 

"  Is  it  the  moved  air  or  the  moving  sound 
That  is  Life's  self  and  draws  my  life  from  me, 

That  'mid  the  tide  of  all  emergency 

Now  notes  my  separate  wave,  and  to  what  sea 

Its  difficult  eddies  labor  in  the  ground  ? 

"  Oh  !  what  is  this  that  knows  the  road  I  came, 
The  flame  turned  cloud,  the  cloud  returned  to  flame, 
The  lifted  shifted  steeps  and  all  the  way  ?  " 

No  doubt  it  is  the  first  instinct,  with  all  of  us, 
to  let  the  "eternal  passion,  eternal  pain,"  of 
great  orchestral  music  interweave  themselves 


Management  of  the  Mind          183 

with  the  past,  the  possible,  or,  more  often, 
the  dear  impossible,  of  our  personal  life-story. 
We  are,  for  the  time  being,  subjects  of  what 
Rossetti  has  noted,  in  his  own  private  copy  of 
the  poem  from  which  I  have  just  quoted,  as 
"  that  sublimated  mood  of  the  soul  in  which  a 
separate  essence  of  itself  seems,  as  it  were,  to 
oversoar  and  survey  it."  But  would  it  not  be 
nobler  in  the  soul  if  its  survey  were  wider? 
Would  it  not  be  better  for  the  will,  in  its  renun 
ciation  and  vows  of  service,  that  these  inchoate 
worlds  of  musical  harmony,  these  swaying 
tides  of  mysteriously  organizing  sound,  an  au 
dible  chaos  of  multitudinous  emotions  over 
which  a  creative  breath  is  hovering  and  calling 
life,  with  all  its  tragedies  and  comedies,  into 
being,  should  be  identified  to  the  imagination 
with  the  fates  of  other  men  than  ourselves  ? 

There  are  persons,  I  am  beginning  to  dis 
cover,  who  have  but  a  very  imperfect  power  of 
visual  imagination.  An  intimate  friend  writes 
me,  after  only  three  years  of  separation,  "  I 
have  completely  forgotten  you.  Or,  rather,  I 
remember  nothing  but  you,  and  not  at  all  your 
outward  aspect.  Face,  form,  manner,  have  alto 
gether  faded,  and  cannot  by  any  effort  of  will 
be  recalled."  But  I  can  shut  my  eyes  and  see 
this  friend  —  form,  features,  color,  a  hundred 
particular  ways  of  gesture  and  manner  —  more 


1 84  Music 

distinctly  than  any  photograph  could  possibly 
present  him.  I  could  draw  his  profile  on  this 
paper ;  not  composing  it,  but  simply  tracing  it 
from  my  mental  image,  as  if  it  were  a  silhouette 
laid  down  and  followed  mechanically  with  the 
pencil. 

Those  of  us  who  possess  this  common  enough 
power  might  at  least  always  give  some  fitting 
mise  en  scene  to  a  symphony,  removing  it  from 
its  incongruous  situation  in  an  ugly  hall  packed 
with  monotonous  rows  of  frivolous  bonnets 
and  sand-papered  heads.  We  do  not  need 
Wagner's  aid  to  obliterate  the  musicians  and 
fill  the  stage  with  impressive  scenery.  In  a 
moment,  at  will,  we  are  reclining  in  a  stately 
pine  forest  on  a  solitary  mountain-side.  Be 
hind  us  tower  great  crags  with  fluted  columnar 
front,  like  nature's  organ-pipes.  Below  and  to 
the  left  hollows  a  piny  gorge,  blue  with  misty 
depth,  up  whose  slope,  from  round  the  moun 
tain's  enormous  flank,  swells  the  sound  of  fall 
ing  torrents.  Beyond  the  granite  ridge  to  the 
right  goes  down  a  broken  footpath  to  a  hidden 
valley,  where  some  momentous  human  passion 
play  begins  now  to  be  enacted. 

Or  we  are  drifting  on  the  ocean,  and  a  storm 
is  subsiding.  All  night  we  have  driven  before 
the  tempest,  and  now  at  the  first  glimmer  of 
dawn  we  strain  our  sight  into  the  darkness, 


Management  of  the  Mind          185 

and  listen  for  the  roar  of  breakers.  Suddenly 
the  sound  of  all  sweet  and  powerful  instruments 
rises  and  mingles  as  if  from  the  very  depths 
of  the  rolling  sea.  Have  the  forces  of  nature 
become  audible  in  their  battling  together  ?  Or 
have  we  drifted  into  the  midst  of  a  strife  of 
mortal  destinies,  and  is  this  the  prelude  to  a 
mighty  drama  of  the  nations  on  the  shores  of 
some  new  world  ? 


CAN   TUNES    BE   INHERITED? 

I  AM  not  a  musician  professionally,  or  in 
any  strict  sense  of  the  word  ;  but  I  am  fond 
of  music,  and,  having  a  correct  ear  and  some 
facility  of  touch,  I  have  played  on  a  good 
many  instruments  without  acquiring  much  skill 
with  any  one  of  them.  One  musical  endow 
ment  there  is  which  might  have  been  strong  in 
me,  if  it  had  ever  received  any  proper  cultiva 
tion  :  it  is  the  power  Of  composing  tunes,  of 
improvisation,  on  a  very  limited  and  unimpres 
sive  scale.  Tunes  make  themselves  in  my 
head,  —  such  as  they  are.  When  I  "  whistle 
as  I  go,  for  want  of  thought,"  it  is  neither  clas 
sical  nor  popular  music,  but  such  as  makes 
itself  as  it  goes  along.  It  is  very  indifferent 
whistling,  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  "distinguished  amateur"  whistler,  but  un 
consciously  the  tune,  if  "a  poor  thing,  sir,"  is 
nearly  always  "my  own." 

All  this  personality  only  by  way  of  prelude 
to  a  curious  fact.  From  about  the  age  of 
twenty  I  have  found  more  and  more  frequently 
coming  into  my  mind  a  peculiar  sort  of  tune ; 


Can  Tunes  be  Merited?          187 

a  queer  minor  melody,  like  the  Scotch,  and  yet 
not  like  the  Scotch.  Its  angular  yet  taking 
wildness  is  more  like  the  Irish  tunes  that  one 
occasionally  hears  a  genuine  native  Irish  girl 
singing,  or  half  humming,  with  unconscious 
pauses  and  sudden  crcscendos  that  follow  the 
vicissitudes  of  her  work.  This  habitual  pre 
sentation  in  the  mind  of  these  broken,  waver 
ing  melodies,  always  on  a  half-fierce  and  half- 
pathetic  minor  key,  had  continued  for  some  ten 
years  when  I  made  my  first  acquaintance,  by 
chance,  with  the  folk-music  of  the  Welsh.  It 
was  on  a  Cunarder  in  mid-ocean,  on  the  voyage 
to  Liverpool.  One  evening  I  was  loitering  up 
and  down  the  deck  in  the  warm  moonlight, 
when  a  group  of  steerage  passengers,  sitting  or 
reclining  about  the  foot  of  the  foremast,  began 
to  sing  in  a  low  and  half-unconscious  strain  in 
the  midst  of  their  talk.  They  were,  it  seems, 
Welsh  people,  who  were  choosing  this  particu 
lar  time  to  revisit  the  fatherland  because  of 
an  approaching  Eisteddfod,  somewhere  in  South 
Wales.  It  was,  I  perceived  instantly,  the 
"  music  of  my  dreams."  To  the  best  of  my 
knowledge  and  belief,  I  had  never  heard  these 
tunes,  or  any  such  tunes,  sung,  whistled,  or 
played  anywhere  before.  It  had  so  happened 
that  I  had  never  lived  in  or  near  any  Welsh 
settlements.  I  had  never  chanced  to  make  the 


188  Music 

acquaintance  of  so  much  as  one  solitary  Welsh 
person,  so  far  as  I  know.  Yet  here,  sung  by 
these  returning  Cymric  exiles  in  the  yellow 
moonlight,  as  we  rose  and  fell  on  the  gently 
heaving  waves,  —  here  were  the  very  strains 
that  had  for  years  been  floating,  unbidden  and 
recognized,  through  my  brain.  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  the  precise  phrases  and  cadences 
were  here.  But  the  character,  the  musical 
moods  and  tenses,  the  tone-color,  were  the 
same. 

My  explanation  of  the  fact  is  simple,  but  to 
most  will  probably  be  incredible.  I  have  Welsh 
blood  in  my  family,  far  back  on  my  mother's 
side.  By  some  freak  of  heredity  the  music  of 
my  Welsh  ancestors  has  come  down  through 
six,  eight,  or  ten  generations,  as  a  dormant 
germ,  and  come  to  life  again  —  a  dim,  somno 
lent,  imperfect  life,  to  be  sure  —  in  a  corner  of 
my  brain.  I  could  almost  fancy  (though  this 
I  do  not  soberly  believe,  for  it  is  explicable  in 
other  ways)  that  there  has  come  down  with  it 
a  visual  picture  of  wild  torchlight  marchings 
and  countermarchings  in  savage  Welsh  glens. 
So  plainly  do  I  see  in  my  brain,  ever  since 
that  night  on  the  steamer,  and  especially  ever 
since  the  corroboration  of  that  instantaneous 
recognition  through  a  collection  of  Cymric 
songs  which  I  afterward  obtained,  visions  that 


Can  Tunes  be  Inherited?          189 

befit  this  strange,  barbaric  music.  I  see  moun 
tain  gorges  at  night,  black-clad  in  stunted  and 
leaning  trees,  under  a  wild  sky,  where  an  un 
shapely  waning  moon  dives  among  scudding 
rags  of  storm.  Winding  along  the  pass  comes 
a  procession  of  my  Keltic  ancestors:  it  is  a 
burial,  or  some  savage  midnight  gathering 
against  the  Saxon  invader.  Red  torches  flare 
in  the  midst  of  their  flying  smoke ;  some  indis 
tinct  dark  mass  is  borne  among  the  leaders ; 
and  now  and  again  there  are  metallic  gleams 
along  the  vanishing  line.  They  are  small, 
dark  men,  half  clothed  in  skins  of  beasts,  and 
their  wild  eyes  shine  under  streaming  locks  of 
black  hair.  A  mountain  stream  beside  them 
flashes  its  white  bursts  of  foam  out  of  the 
darkness  under  the  crags,  and  continually 
there  rises  and  mingles  with  its  roar  that  fierce 
yet  woeful  music,  half  shouted  and  half  sung. 


ana 

INDIVIDUAL   CONTINUITY 

HE  continuity  of  our  lives  is  not  so 
great  as  we  are  apt  to  suppose.  We 
have  in  youth  a  vivid  sense  of  our  con 
tinuous  individuality,  and  we  take  it  for  granted 
that  it  will  always  be  so  with  us.  Thus  we 
hear  with  some  incredulity  the  anecdotes  of 
eminent  men  who  have  completely  lost  the 
recollection  of  certain  things  done,  said,  or 
written  in  early  life,  and,  what  is  more,  all  in 
terest  in  them,  or  desire  to  remember  them. 
That  Lowell  can  have  forgotten,  as  the  itemizer 
says,  that  he  was  once  a  contributor  to  the 
"  Dial  "  seems  incredible  to  a  college  Junior  of 
my  acquaintance.  He  has  never  forgotten  any 
thing  he  has  written  !  In  like  manner,  to  have 
a  bosom  friend  at  fourteen,  and  come  to  care 
next  to  nothing  about  him  at  forty,  appears  to 
the  boy  a  shocking  piece  of  treason.  Little  he 
knows  how  many  breaks  are  likely  to  occur  in 
the  succession  of  his  life-phases ;  and  how 
many  times  the  winged  creature  will  lightly 


Individual  Continuity  191 

slip  his  feet  out  of  the  chrysalis  shell,  carrying 
only  some  invisible  thread  of  half-memory  over 
from  one  epoch  into  the  other, 

No  doubt  there  are  lives  that  do  go  on  with 
comparatively  unbroken  coherence,  —  tranquil, 
rustic,  or  village  lives,  whose  sun  always  rises 
over  the  same  horizon,  and  whose  radii  of  in 
terests,  from  year  to  year,  go  out  to  the  same 
unchanged  circumference.  Here  the  constantly 
overlapping  continuity  of  the  neighborhood 
existence  helps  to  keep  the  man's  own  thread 
of  personality  unbroken.  But  when  we  once 
cut  loose  from  geography,  make  friends  and 
break  with  friends,  become  the  very  opposite 
of  "  Bourbons  "  in  that  we  are  always  "  learn 
ing"  and  always  "forgetting,"  then  how  far 
backward  over  our  days  can  the  uninterrupted 
"  I  "  be  fairly  said  to  extend  ?  When 

"  some  divinely  gifted  man, 
Whose  life  in  low  estate  began 
And  on  a  simple  village  green," 

at  last  "breaks  his  birth's  invidious  bar,"  and 
passes  on  to  new  desires,  new  opinions,  at  last 
a  whole  background  of  new  memories,  even, 
can  it  any  longer  be  said  to  have  been  really 
he  who 

"  played  at  councilors  and  kings 
With  one  that  was  his  earliest  mate, 


192  Psychology  atui  Ethics 

Who  ploughs  with  pain  his  native  lea, 

And  reaps  the  labor  of  his  hands, 

Or  in  the  furrow  musing  stands  : 

'  Does  my  old  friend  remember  me  '  "  ? 

In  the  early  summer  morning  I  see  what 
appears  to  be  a  long  silver  line  bending  and 
glancing  in  the  air  between  the  fir  and  the 
apple-tree.  But  when  I  look  closely,  it  proves 
to  be  a  succession  of  infinitesimal  globules  of 
gray  dew,  strung  on  an  invisible  spider-line. 
Is  our  personality  such  a  succession  of  sep 
arately  sphered  moments  or  hours  ?  And  what 
is  the  continuous  line  on  which  they  are 
threaded  ?  With  one,  it  may  be  some  persist 
ent  purpose,  —  an  ambition  or  a  passion ; 
with  another,  the  abnegation  of  an  ambition  or 
a  passion,  or  some  inveterate  trouble  that  is 
the  last  to  look  in  on  him  at  night  and  the  first 
in  the  morning,  and  by  means  of  which  he  has 
no  difficulty  in  self-recognition. 

It  is  perhaps  a  mere  fancy  that  mirrors  have 
something  to  do  with  the  distinct  and  ever- 
present  sense  of  our  own  identity.  If  a  man 
had  never  looked  at  himself  in  a  glass,  and  so 
had  no  clear  mental  image  of  how  he  looked 
yesterday,  and  the  day  before,  and  a  year  ago, 
would  he,  for  example,  feel  so  intensely  as  now 
this  irrational  need  of  being  consistent  with  his 
own  past?  It  is  not  merely  that  we  "cannot 


Individual  Continuity  193 

escape  from  our  grandfathers;"  but  we  cannot 
escape,  either,  from  our  own  last  year.  Was 
the  primitive  man,  unsophisticated  by  French 
plate  mirrors,  freer  for  new  growths  ?  Or  did 
even  Adam  contemplate  his  aboriginal  counte 
nance  in  some  smooth  inlet  of  the  river  Pison, 
and  so  acquire  an  obstinate  sense  of  respon 
sibility  for  his  earliest  Adamite  impressions  ? 

And  (while  we  are  speculating  a  little  freely) 
shall  we  go  to  the  length  of  saying  that  possi 
bly  the  mere  accident  of  clothing  counts  for 
something  in  the  case  ?  It  may  then  be  safest 
that  a  man  renew  his  garments  only  piecemeal ; 
or,  if  he  assume  a  complete  new  suit  at  a  time, 
let  him  retire  often  into  the  linking  familiarity 
of  the  second-best.  With  no  mirror-image  and 
no  reminder  from  wonted  clothes,  would  not  a 
man  sometimes  need  the  evidence  of  "  the  little 
dog  at  home,  and  he  knows  me,"  to  be  sure 
that  "  I  be  as  I  think  I  be "  ?  It  may  well 
be  doubted  whether  all  of  us  have  positive  in 
dividuality  enough  to  hold  the  steady  recogni 
tion  of  even  our  nearest  relatives,  without  the 
visible  tag  of  some  familiar  cut  or  color  of  gar 
ment,  or,  at  least,  of  that  innermost  garb  or 
mask  which  is  the  bodily  face  and  form  itself. 

How  much,  moreover,  has  the  mere  circum 
stance  of  our  always  carrying  the  same  name 
to  do  with  our  sense  of  continuity  ?  As  I  look 


194  Psychology  and  Ethics 

over  my  old  letters,  here  is  the  too  familiar 
address  on  all  the  faded  envelopes  ;  these  cer 
tainly,  you  would  say,  were  addressed  to  very 
me.  But  when  I  open  one  to  read,  it  seems 
to  me  it  can  hardly  have  been  "  I  "  who  wrote 
the  juvenilities  to  which  these  things  are  in 
response.  It  was  another  being  to  whom  they 
came  fresh  from  the  mail,  — 

"  Like  letters  unto  trembling  hands  ;  " 

another  being  who  read  them  with  the  eager 
ness  and  responsive  thoughts  that  I  do  now 
certainly  seem  to  remember  —  by  some  strange 
witchcraft  or  self-substitution,  like  that  of  Si 
gurd  and  Gunnar  upon  the  Flaming  Heath  — 
almost  as  if  they  had  been  my  veritable  own. 
He  bore  my  name,  drew  checks  with  my  signa 
ture,  even  went  so  far  as  to  pay  my  bills,  — 
that  person  in  the  past.  But  in  any  other 
sense  I  am  hardly  prepared  to  own  him  as  my 
actual  and  continual  self.  I  rather  look  upon 
him  as  the  chick  upon  the  eggshell,  the  moth 
upon  the  cracked  cocoon,  the  man  at  the  mi 
croscope  upon  the  film  of  protoplasm,  with  the 
musing  consciousness,  "  Such  as  thou  art,  once 
was  I." 

Since  we  actually  go  through  these  meta 
morphoses  in  life,  it  would  be  a  significant  and 
appropriate  act,  if  only  it  were  permitted  us,  to 


Individual  Continuity  195 

shed  our  names  from  time  to  time.  The  other 
day,  when  I  suddenly  awaked  once  for  all  from 
an  old  nightmare  of  illusion,  why  might  I  not 
then  and  there  have  moulted  to  the  extent  of 
my  name  ?  Or  that  hour  when  I  flung  aside  a 
particular  opinion  which  had  long  ridden  my 
mind's  shoulders,  like  an  Old  Man  of  the  Sea, 
why  should  there  not  have  gone  with  it  the 
designation  of  the  being  whose  life  had  been 
thus  spoiled,  letting  the  new  man  start  with  a 
new  heraldic  device  ?  Something  of  this  sort, 
it  is  true,  does  happen  when  a  person  throws 
off  his  early  nickname,  and  assumes  the  toga 
virilis  of  the  full  combination  of  baptismal 
titles  through  which  his  parents  have  made 
him  imposing  or  ridiculous  to  the  ear ;  and  at 
last,  it  may  be,  adds  the  initials  of  dignity  by 
which  his  college  or  his  church  has  ministered 
to  his  vanity.  "  Dicky  "  becomes  "  Dick,"  and 
then  full  "  Richard,"  and  then  "  the  Reverend 
Doctor,"  or  "the  Bishop,"  or  "the  ex-Vice- 
President."  These  developments  are  but  the 
outward  and  audible  symbols  of  mysterious 
inner  transformations.  The  ex-Vice-President, 
bald  now,  glazed  (if  that  be  a  proper  term  for 
the  taking  on  of  spectacles)  and  wise,  would 
no  more  wish  to  be  held  responsible  for  the 
views  he  expressed  in  youth  than  he  would 
chirp  and  twitter  again  at  the  charms  of  the 


196  Psychology  and  Ethics 

"girl  he  left  behind"  him,  or  answer  to  the 
maternal  or  sororal  call  of  "  Dicky." 

More  than  this  it  would  perhaps  not  be  safe 
to  permit  to  us  in  the  way  of  escape  from  our 
proper  labels.  It  is  necessary  that  society 
should  hold  us  to  a  strict  accountability  for 
-our  successive  selves,  and  the  name  is  the  rope 
by  which  these  are  held  together.  The  world 
must  keep  track  of  us,  like  a  great  police. 
Nature,  besides,  has  us  all  down  in  her  rogue's 
gallery  ;  for  our  face  is  photographed  in  a  thou 
sand  watchful  eyes,  as  well  as  our  name  in  so 
many  ears. 

Something  of  our  restlessness  in  flitting  from 
place  to  place  may  be  accounted  for  by  this  in 
stinctive  craving  to  let  the  new  and  different 
man  that  we  feel  is  in  us,  or  might  be  in  us, 
begin  life  all  over  again  in  a  different  place. 
At  last  we  shall  be  permitted  to  do  it,  but  not 
prematurely.  We  dodge  to  Dresden  or  Geneva, 
but  we  are  there  at  the  station  to  receive  our 
selves.  Ccelum,  non  animum,  we  find  that  we 
have  changed.  The  old  lives  have  managed  to 
creep  stealthily  in  our  shadow,  and  soon  they 
accost  us  at  every  street  corner  with  ironical 
congratulations  at  our  escape  from  them,  in  the 
new  city  as  in  the  old. 

Are  there  not  lapses  or  gaps  in  the  conti- 
nuitv  of  our  conscious  existence,  of  which  we 


Individual  Continuity  197 

may  ourselves,  by  a  little  close  attention,  be 
come  aware  ?  To  begin  with,  there  is  the  gap 
of  nightly  sleep,  when  the  chain  of  conscious 
ness,  if  it  does  not  actually  break  off,  at  least 
sags  under  water  and  is  lost  to  the  eye  for  a 
space,  to  emerge  glimmering  with  vague  dreams 
into  the  sunshine  of  the  waking  hour.  If  the 
figure  appears  strained,  it  is  because  I  am 
thinking  of  the  early  spring  mornings  in  boy 
hood,  when  we  used  to  go  to  the  Little  River 
to  take  up  the  gill-net  for  shad.  A  mist  hung 
on  the  smoothly  running  water ;  there  was  an 
"  Oriental  fragrancy "  of  spearmint  from  the 
moist  bank  ;  the  rattle  of  the  oar  in  the  row 
lock  sounded  preternaturally  loud,  echoing  un 
der  the  covered  bridge  at  that  perfectly  silent 
hour.  When  we  boys  begin  to  lift  the  strained 
top  line  of  the  net,  pulling  the  skiff  along  by 
means  of  it,  it  is  a  moment  of  delicious  excite 
ment.  What  is  that  dim  spot  of  glimmering 
gold,  far  down  in  the  dark  water?  It  grows, 
as  we  eagerly  haul  on  the  line,  and  the  little 
waves  plashed  out  by  the  boat  make  it  waver 
and  break,  till  it  seems  some  huge  and  splendid 
prize,  like  the  mysterious  casket  in  the  net  of 
the  Arabian  fisherman.  So  memory,  pulling  in 
the  line  of  submerged  consciousness  after  pro 
found  sleep,  catches  sight  of  vague  gleams  of 
wonderful  experiences. 


198  Psychology  and  Ethics 

But  frequently,  even  in  waking  hours,  I  have 
seemed  to  detect  lapses  of  conscious  conti 
nuity.  I  look  up,  for  example,  from  writing, 
and  my  eye  turns  to  the  window,  and  sight  and 
attention  seem  to  exhale,  as  it  were,  or  evapo 
rate  into  open  space  ;  thought  ceases ;  for  five 
seconds  I  am  not  a  mind,  I  am  a  vegetable. 
Or  in  walking  over  some  beaten  track  up  and 
down  in  my  garden,  I  have  sometimes  found 
myself  at  the  other  end  of  my  beat,  without 
having  noticed  anything,  or  thought  of  any 
thing  in  particular,  on  the  way.  It  has  several 
times  happened  to  me,  in  using  my  "  home- 
exerciser  "  and  giving  to  each  pulley  movement 
my  accustomed  forty  counts,  that  I  find  myself 
at  twenty-five  or  thirty,  when  I  seemed  only  to 
have  just  counted  twelve  or  fifteen.  Now  did 
I  simply  skip  the  intervening  numbers,  or  did 
the  unconscious  brain  cells  go  on  automatically 
counting  across  a  gap  of  that  extent  in  my  con 
scious  existence  ?  Suppose  I  had  "  died,"  as 
we  call  it,  during  that  interval :  what  would 
have  gone  on  into  immortality,  the  conscious 
ness  or  the  gap  ? 

But  in  truth  this  whole  matter  of  the  indi 
vidual  identity  —  the  I-ness  of  the  I  —  is  thick 
with  difficult  questions.  Here  is  my  old  apple- 
tree,  for  instance :  is  it  a  tree,  or  a  thousand 
trees  using  one  common  bole  ?  Every  bud  on 


Individual  Continuity  199 

it  is  in  reality  a  separate,  individual  being; 
as  we  may  easily  prove  by  setting  it  off  by  it 
self  in  some  chink  of  another  tree,  where  the 
sap  of  life  shall  come  to  it  duly.  Or  in  the 
case  of  a  bunch  of  polyps,  or  of  vorticels,  on 
one  stalk,  how  much  of  the  cooperative  life  is 
entitled  to  say  "  I,"  and  where  does  the  we- 
ness  of  the  we  begin  ?  If  we  are  to  count  the 
whole  tree,  with  its  multitude  of  separate  or 
separable  lives,  as  only  a  single  individual,  how 
would  it  be  with  us  if  the  human  offspring  were 
never  wholly  separated  from  the  life-sustaining 
parent  ?  Or  would  it  strain  our  sense  of  iden 
tity  at  all,  if  the  entire  change  of  the  substance 
of  the  body,  popularly  supposed  to  take  place 
every  seven  years,  should  no  longer  occur  grad 
ually,  cell  by  cell,  but  by  a  sudden  cataclysm, 
some  fine  morning  ?  As  the  old  bone  and  tissue 
left  him,  and  the  new  were  clapped  on  in  their 
place,  would  not  the  man  have  to  jump  to  tie 
on  the  thread  of  new  memory  at  the  vanishing 
end  of  the  old,  lest  he  lose  himself  before  he 
had  time  to  find  himself  ? 

There  is  an  old  story  they  tell  in  the  country 
that  always  seemed  to  me  to  have  occult  and 
esoteric  meanings  ;  as  it  were  a  kind  of  myth 
that  had  been  builded  better  than  was  known, 
or  else  a  survival  from  the  folk-lore  of  some 
lost  race  of  speculative  mound-builders.  The 


200  Psychology  and  Ethics 

tale  is  of  an  old  farmer  who  was  driving  a 
yoke  of  oxen  in  an  empty  cart,  and  who  yielded 
gradually  to  the  sweet  influences  of  a  jug  by 
his  side,  and  fell  fast  asleep.  The  leisurely 
oxen  having  presently  sauntered  into  the  grass 
by  the  roadside,  some  humorous  passer-by 
found  them  feeding  there  and  turned  them 
loose,  leaving  the  peaceful  sleeper  snoring  in 
the  sun.  By  and  by  he  awakened,  sat  up, 
rubbed  his  eyes,  and  slowly  soliloquized :  "Am 
I,  or  am  I  not  I  ?  If  I  am  I,  I  have  lost  a  good 
yoke  .of  oxen.  If  I  am  not  I,  I  have  found  z. 
good  cart ! " 


WHAT    DO    WE    MEAN    BY    "RIGHT" 
AND   "OUGHT"? 

The  writer  wishes  to  make  only  the  prefatory  remark 
that  he  puts  forward  no  claim  to  the  discovery  of  any 
new  basis  for  morals.  His  effort  is  merely  to  bring 
more  clearly  into  the  light  what  seems  to  him  to  have 
been  all  along  (in  actual  fact)  the  basis,  and  to  have 
this  more  clearly  recognized  as  such.  While  the  sub 
stance  of  his  essay  was  written,  and  propounded  to  a 
limited  circle,  before  the  publication  of  Herbert  Spen 
cer's  "  Data  of  Ethics,"  it  comes  —from  a  different  point 
of  view  —  to  results  in  harmony  with  that  work.  Nor  is 
this  strange,  since  the  writer  had  been  familiar  with  Mr. 
Spencer's  previous  writings,  and  had  no  doubt  been 
greatly  indebted  to  him  in  all  his  later  thinking  on  the 
subject. 

IN  attempting  to  find  a  solid  basis  for  mor 
als,  ethical  writers  have  too  much  neglected 
the  simple  question  of  fact.  They  have  asked 
what  we  ought  to  mean  by  "  right,"  and  what  it 
is  right  to  understand  by  "  ought,"  but  these 
questions  lead  into  fog.  What  we  need  first 
of  all  to  know  is,  What  do  we,  in  fact,  mean 
by  these  words,  as  we  use  them  from  day  to 
day  ?  Every  one  uses  them.  They  are  found 


202  Psychology  and  Ethics 

in  different  races,  in  connection  with  all  sorts 
of  religious  beliefs.  They  are  applied  every 
where  —  and  this  is  very  significant  —  to  sub 
stantially  the  same  classes  of  actions.  It  would 
be  easy  to  point  out  these  actions,  and  thus  to 
show  what  these  terms  "  right  "  and  "  ought " 
denote ;  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  point  out  the 
precise  qualities  of  actions  by  virtue  of  which 
we  say  that  they  are  "  right,"  and  "  ought "  to 
be  done,  and  thus  to  show  what  these  terms 
connote,  or  what  we  mean  by  them.  It  is  a 
question,  not  of  metaphysics  or  speculative 
ethics,  but  of  pure  psychology.  We  shall  find, 
if  we  investigate  it,  that  we  have  already  a  solid 
basis  for  morals,  and  that  what  is  needed  is  to 
bring  it  to  clear  recognition.  We  shall  find 
that  "  right,"  as  a  quality  of  actions,  has  refer 
ence  to  their  consequences  ;  that  when  we  say 
a  thing  is  "  right "  we  mean  that  it  conduces 
to  human  welfare ;  that  the  highest  welfare  is 
conceived  to  be  that  which  Herbert  Spencer 
describes  in  his  "  Data  of  Ethics "  as  "  com 
plete  living." 

It  will  be  best  to  take,  for  our  analysis,  a 
case  in  point.  Suppose  that  A.  is  angry  with 
B.,  and  has  a  murderous  impulse  toward  him. 
But  the  thought  arises,  "  It  is  not  right  to  kill 
him  ; "  "I  ought  not  to  kill  him."  The  two 
terms  do  not  connote  the  same  thing.  Let  us 


"  Right "  and  "  Ought "  203 

take  them  separately.  First,  what  does  he 
mean  by  "  right  "  ? 

To  begin  with,  A.  does  not  need  to  stop  to 
think  of  the  moral  aspect  of  this  particular 
case  of  killing.  He  simply  perceives  that  it 
falls  in  with  a  class  of  acts  concerning  which 
he  has  previously  formed  this  judgment  of 
"  not  right."  In  other  words,  he  now  only 
feels  it  to  be  "  not  right,"  by  an  instantaneous 
instinct.  But  how  has  this  been  formed  ? 

There  are  certain  adjectives,  oftenest  applied 
to  concrete  objects,  and  connoting  impressions 
made  directly  on  special  senses.  Such  are 
blue,  sweet,  rough,  etc.  There  are  other  adjec 
tives,  oftenest  applied  to  actions,  and  connoting 
their  results.  Such  are  dangerous,  beneficent, 
ruinous,  etc.  To  which  of  these  classes  does 
"  right  "  belong  ?  Does  it  express  some  qual 
ity  of  an  action  that  directly  strikes  a  special 
sense,  an  "  inner  sense,"  comparable  to  the 
outer  senses  of  sight,  touch,  etc.  ?  or  does  it 
express  some  character  in  the  consequences 
likely  to  follow  the  action  ?  In  other  words, 
when  A.  says,  "  It  is  not  right  to  kill  B.,"  is 
he  expressing  an  impression  made  directly  on 
some  special  "  sense  of  right,"  or  a  judgment 
as  to  consequences  ? 

We  must  avoid  one  liability  to  error  here :  if 
a  certain  action  has  repeatedly  been  followed 


204  Psychology  and  Ethics 

by  evil  results,  although  the  first  judgment 
concerning  it  was  plainly  an  estimate  of  conse 
quences,  it  finally  comes  to  seem  a  direct  ver 
dict  of  impression  on  an  inner  sense.  For 
example,  the  action  of  thrusting  the  hand  into 
boiling  metal  is  declared  so  instantaneously  to 
be  dangerous  that  one  feels  as  if  the  action  re 
quired  no  weighing  of  consequences,  but  as  if 
some  "  sense  of  danger  "  immediately  declared 
it  dangerous.  Originally,  however,  the  child 
required  a  process  of  reasoning  to  apply  this 
judgment  as  to  its  quality.  And  we  again 
come  back  to  the  original  need  of  reflection 
when  we  have  learned  that  there  are  certain 
conditions  under  which  the  action  is  not  at  all 
dangerous,  and  once  more  the  adjective  really 
stands  for  the  result  of  a  process  of  reasoning 
as  to  the  probable  consequences  of  the  action. 
In  the  same  way,  it  is  apparently  the  expres 
sion  of  a  direct  impression  on  some  "  sense  of 
right  "  when  A.  says,  "  It  is  not  right  to  kill 
B."  But  if  we  go  back  to  the  period  of  child 
hood,  we  find  that  originally  this  action  of  kill 
ing  made  no  such  impression  on  the  mind,  — 
say  in  the  case  of  killing  animals.  If  it  is  true 
that  children  are  ever  born  with  this  judgment 
(so  to  speak)  that  killing  is  not  "right,"  it  is 
probably  the  result  of  ancestral  experience,  and 
in  no  case  amounts  to  more  than  some  instinc- 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  205 

tive  physical  repugnance.  It  is  safe  to  say 
that  the  time  when  the  act  of  killing  first  seems 
clearly  not  "  right "  to  the  child,  is  the  moment 
when  he  recognizes  that  certain  evil  results  — 
punishment  to  himself,  or  pain  and  deprivation 
of  life  to  the  animal  —  follow  the  act.  Here 
also,  as  in  the  case  of  plunging  the  hand  into 
boiling  metal,  we  come  at  last  to  find  that  kill 
ing  is  sometimes  right,  as  in  the  killing  of  ani 
mals  for  food,  or  the  judicial  killing  of  men, 
and  again  the  judgment  (after  having  passed 
through  a  stage  where  it  seems  immediate,  as 
if  the  verdict  of  a  special  sense)  becomes  again 
visibly  a  weighing  of  consequences. 

In  examining  the  origin  and  growth  of  the 
idea  of  "  right "  in  childhood  (or  what  is  very 
much  the  same  thing,  in  undeveloped  men), 
we  find  that  the  idea  changes  very  greatly  as 
the  mind  develops.  Perhaps  there  could  be 
no  better  test  of  the  degree  of  development  of 
men  than  the  meaning  of  this  word  "  right "  to 
their  minds,  —  not  the  denotation  merely,  or 
the  designation  of  what  actions  are  "  right," 
but  the  connotation,  or  the  quality  in  which 
their  Brightness  "  is  conceived  to  consist.  In 
earliest  childhood,  as  the  mother  expresses  to 
the  child  her  displeasure  at  certain  acts,  this 
displeasure,  followed  it  may  be  by  other  pains, 
comes  to  be  the  prominent  result  of  these  ac- 


206  Psychology  and  Ethics 

tions  to  his  consciousness.  Conversely,  certain 
actions  become  associated  in  the  child's  mind 
with  the  agreeable  result  of  the  parent's  ap 
proval,  and  perhaps  reward.  These  he  learns 
to  consider  "  right  "  actions.  If,  now,  the  fam 
ily  is  an  ordinarily  religious  one,  the  child 
learns  also  to  expect  the  displeasure  and  pun 
ishment  of  God  from  certain  acts,  his  approval 
and  reward  from  certain  others.  To  a  greater 
or  less  extent,  also,  he  is  taught  —  or  learns  by 
his  own  observation  —  to  expect  from  actions 
a  result  in  approval  or  disapproval  from  other 
people,  at  first  in  the  household,  and  afterward 
in  the  outside  world.  "  Right  "  comes,  then, 
to  signify  to  the  child's  mind  a  certain  set  of 
consequences  to  himself  from  parents,  from 
God,  from  public  opinion. 

But  this  is  not  all.  From  the  beginning  the 
child  has  what  may  be  called  sympathy,  or  the 
tendency  to  put  himself  in  another's  place.  (It 
is  seen  even  in  the  brute  animals,  at  least  in 
motherhood.)  He  feels  the  evil  results  of  ac 
tions  to  others  to  some  extent  as  to  himself. 
In  other  words,  the  consequences  of  actions 
come  to  be  computed  with  reference  to  others, 
as  well  as  to  self.  "  Not  right,"  in  fine,  comes 
to  mean  what  will  bring  evil  consequences  to 
all. 

When,  therefore,  A.  says  to  himself,  "  It  is 


"  Right  "  and  "  Ought "  207 

not  right  to  kill  B.,"  his  consciousness  con 
tains,  as  the  connotation  of  the  word  "right,"  a 
judgment  as  to  the  consequences  of  this  action. 
It  is  a  judgment  so  rapid,  and  its  elements  are 
so  tangled  together  in  vague  combination,  that 
it  seems  an  instantaneous  sense  impression. 
But  there  are  likely  to  lie  in  it  the  obscure 
remains  of  the  teachings  of  childhood,  the  ap 
prehension  of  parental,  of  divine,  of  public 
displeasure  to  himself,  the  sympathetic  appre 
hension  of  the  resulting  evil  to  B.,  and  the 
perception  (if  he  be  a  reflective  man),  how 
ever  general  and  rapidly  swept  together  in 
consciousness,  of  universal  harms  to  universal 
being. 

It  is  an  interesting  question,  the  answer  to 
which  throws  some  light  on  the  explanation  of 
the  idea  :  How  did  this  word  "  right  "  come 
to  be  selected  in  language  to  represent  this 
idea  ?  The  original  sense  of  the  term,  not  in 
our  own  tongue  only,  is  of  straightness,  as  a 
•'  right  line."  "  Wrong,"  also,  is  originally 
"wrung,"  or  wrenched  from  the  straight  line. 
While  we  must  beware  of  foisting  into  the 
mind  at  a  given  moment,  in  trying  to  analyze 
what  it  contains  in  using  any  word,  too  much 
of  the  original  sense  of  it  (for  of  this  the  mind 
at  the  moment  may  hold  very  little  indeed  in 
consciousness),  yet  the  choice  of  a  certain 


208  Psychology  and  Ethics 

word,  in  the  growth  of  language,  to  represent 
a  certain  secondary  Mea,  has  always  some  sig 
nificance.  In  this  case  the  instinctive  selec 
tion  of  "  right  "  and  "wrong," — the  straight 
and  the  crooked,  —  to  stand  for  actions  char 
acterized  respectively  by  good  and  evil  conse 
quences,  seems  to  point  to  a  perception  that 
the  straight  line  is  the  useful  and  convenient 
one  on  the  whole.  It  is  the  line  the  results  of 
which  are,  in  the  long  run,  most  satisfactory. 
In  building,  in  constructing,  in  traveling,  in 
adapting  means  to  ends  in  general,  the  straight 
is  on  the  whole  the  successful.  Out  of  all  the 
endless  variety  of  crooked  lines,  only  a  few 
are  beautiful,  only  a  few  are  useful.  Number 
less  phrases  involve  this  perception.  The  boy 
must  "  toe  the  mark."  The  account  is  "  all 
straight."  The  man  is  "level-headed."  Meth 
ods  are  "  crooked."  We  "  straighten  out  " 
confusions. 

To  the  question,  then,  "What  does  the  man 
mean  by  right  ?  "  our  answer  is,  He  really 
means  "  productive  of  good  consequences ; 
conducive  to  welfare."  If  it  be  asked,  '•''whose 
welfare  ?  "  the  reply  must  be,  It  will  depend  on 
the  grade  of  development  of  him  who  uses  the 
word.  It  may  in  the  consciousness  be  limited 
to  self,  it  may  be  so  wide  as  to  include  all. 

If  one  doubt  that  it  is  this  estimate  of  con- 


"  Right "  and  "  Ought  "  209 

sequences  that  determines  for  us  whether  ac 
tions  are  right,  let  him  notice  how  immediately 
we  decide  an  action  to  be  wrong  —  however  it 
had  been  felt  to  be  right  before  —  the  moment 
we  are  convinced  that  it  will  bring  harm  to  all. 
When  the  Laureate  makes  Pallas  say  to  the 
hesitating  Paris  :  — 

"  Because  right  is  right,  to  follow  right 
Were  wisdom  in  the  scorn  of  consequence," 

we  understand  that  the  meaning  is,  it  is  wise 
to  scorn  momentary  and  merely  personal  con 
sequences,  in  favor  of  those  which  are  lasting 
and  universal.  Without  the  expectation  of  con 
sequences  of  some  sort,  to  some  one,  actions 
could  have  to  us  no  quality  of  Tightness  or 
wrongness  at  all. 

But  do  all  actions  that  are  judged  to  be  con 
ducive  to  welfare  bring  with  them  the  sense  of 
their  being  "  right "  ?  A  man  puts  on  his  shoes 
in  dressing.  The  consequences  of  not  doing 
so  are  distinct,  yet  he  has  no  sense  of  right  or 
wrong  connected  with  the  act.  It  is  a  mere 
question  of  prudence.  Suppose  he  knew  the 
leaving  off  his  shoes  would  result  in  his  not 
being  able  to  walk  to  a  certain  point  in  time 
to  win  a  suit  which  would  secure  to  him  an 
immense  fortune  ?  This  increased  amount  of 
anticipated  evil  still  does  not  give  the  act  any 
tinge  of  moral  quality  to  his  mind,  so  far  as 


210  Psychology  and  Ethics 

the  consequences  to  self  only  are  thought  of. 
But  the  preventing  another  from  having  shoes, 
though  it  would  only  cause  some  slight  pain, 
seems  to  him  wrong.  Still  more  the  prevent 
ing  another  from  winning  his  fortune. 

Yet  we  have  said  that  the  very  origin  of  the 
idea  of  "right"  in  the  child's  mind  lies  in  the 
perception  of  consequences  to  himself.  How 
is  it,  then,  that  it  seems  to  be  only  when  re 
sults  to  others  are  involved  that  we  pass  from 
a  perception  of  what  is  merely  "  prudent  "  to 
a  felt  quality  of  "  Tightness  "  ?  Has  the  man 
merely  transferred  a  name,  applying  now  the 
term  "  prudent  "  to  that  quality  of  an  action 
which  once  he  would  have  termed  "  right  "  ? 

No,  not  merely  the  name,  but  the  idea  con 
tained  in  his  consciousness  is  different.  It  is 
important  to  detect  in  just  what  this  difference 
consists.  In  both  cases  the  result  is  conceived 
only  as  regarding  self.  In  the  case  of  the 
child,  where  the  idea  seems  fairly  represented 
by  the  term  "  right,"  the  result  (the  penalty)  is 
conceived  as  coming  from  a  person.  In  the 
case  of  the  man,  where  the  idea  is  represented 
by  the  term  "prudent,"  the  result  is  to  come 
from  impersonal  forces  of  nature.  Is  it  not 
the  personality  of  the  source  of  penalty  that 
makes  the  difference  ?  Suppose  that  the  man 
believed  that  if  he  left  off  his  shoes  God  would 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  211 

directly  punish  him  by  making  him  ill.  Now 
again  it  would  seem  to  him  a  question  of  right 
and  wrong.  Suppose  God  were  conceived  to 
act  unalterably  and  uniformly  by  unvarying 
laws,  the  illness  coming  now,  not  as  a  special 
adaptation  to  the  individual  case,  but  as  the 
result  of  unchangeable  conditions.  Now  it  has 
become  mere  "prudence"  again.  Is  it  not, 
then,  the  element  of  uncertainty  —  the  vague 
ness  of  the  expectation  —  that  gives  that  tinge 
to  the  idea  which  makes  us  call  it  "  right "  in 
stead  of  "  prudent "  ?  If  the  child  knows  that  a 
machine  will  invariably  strike  his  hand  when 
ever  he  puts  it  on  the  wheel,  he  considers  it  to 
be  "  prudent' "  to  avoid  that  action.  If  he  knows 
that  his  mother  will  probably  strike  his  hand  if 
he  puts  it  on  the  sleeping  baby,  he  considers 
it  "  right "  to  avoid  the  act.  Trying  to  grasp 
all  that  the  consciousness  contains  in  either 
case,  can  we  see  any  difference  between  the 
two  ideas  except  the  defmiteness  and  certainty 
of  the  expectation  of  pain  in  the  one,  the  vague 
ness  and  uncertainty  in  the  other  ?  For  the 
personal  displeasure  always  introduces  an  in 
calculable  element  into  the  penalty.  In  other 
words,  there  is  a  sense  of  the  authority  of  the 
parent,  of  God,  or  of  public  opinion,  conceived 
as  sources  of  penalty;  and  this  "authority" 
seems  on  analysis  to  yield  only  a  sense  of  the 


212  Psychology  and  EtUcs 

indefinite  power — the  unlimited  possibility  of 
producing  consequences  —  in  these  beings. 

It  is  not  necessarily  in  merely  growing  ma 
ture  in  years  that  one  reaches  a  higher  devel 
opment  of  the  idea  of  right.  No  doubt  many 
persons  of  mature  age  still  have  in  their  con 
sciousness  only  some  vague  apprehension  of 
penalties  to  themselves  when  they  feel  an  act 
to  be  not  "  right."  Perhaps  it  might  some 
times  be  found  that  a  man  considers  an  act  not 
"  prudent "  when  it  threatens  some  slight  and 
temporary  damage  to  himself,  and  another  act 
not  "  right "  when  to  his  belief  it  threatens  him 
with  everlasting  torment. 

But  in  those  minds  which  pass  on  to  further 
development  in  growing  older,  the  considera 
tion  of  consequences  to  others  more  and  more 
takes  the  place  of  this  childish  idea  of  "  right." 
The  consideration  of  consequences  to  self, 
from  any  source  whatever,  hardly  gives  to  the 
idea  concerning  an  act  any  flavor  whatever  of 
"  Tightness,"  but  only  a  sense  of  its  "pru 
dence."  It  is  only  what  would  cause  gener 
ally  harm  that  seems  "  wrong ;  "  it  is  only  what 
conduces  to  the  general  welfare  that  seems 
-right." 

But  there  is  a  higher  idea  than  that  of 
"  right,"  as  the  mere  correlative  of  "wrong." 
"  Right  "  as  ordinarily  used  means  only  what 


"  Right91  and  "Ought"  213 

we  may  do  without  doing  wrong.  The  higher 
idea  is  that  of  "  duty."  This  word  means  not 
what  we  merely  may  do,  but  what  we  "ought" 
to  do.  Here  again  we  see  a  development  from 
a  cruder  to  a  more  evolved  morality.  At  first, 
whether  in  childhood,  or  in  the  childish  period 
of  nations,  or  in  the  permanent  condition  of 
unprogressive  nations  and  persons,  morality 
goes  no  farther  than  in  the  abstention  from 
"  wrong."  Its  precepts  are  only  "  Thou  shalt 
not."  But  there  comes  later  the  sense  of 
"  duty."  The  aspiration  is  to  do  not  only  the 
right,  but  all  the  right  one  can  as  one's  whole 
duty.  The  morality  is  based  not  on  "Thou 
shalt  not,"  nor  even  on  "Thou  shalt,"  but  "I 


And  what,  now,  is  the  true  analysis  of  this 
further  idea  of  "  ought  "  ?  We  have  said  that 
it  is  not  identical  with  the  idea  of  "  right  "  ; 
their  denotation  may  be  the  same,  but  their 
connotation  is  different.  When  A.  says,  "  It  is 
not  right  to  kill  B.,  I  ought  not  to  do  it,"  he 
really  says  two  different  things.  The  idea 
"  ought  "  carries  in  his  consciousness  a  more 
prominent  flavor  of  the  outside  power  com 
pelling  him  by  means  of  penalties.  It  is  neces 
sary,  for  any  clear  analysis,  to  consider  the 
origin  of  this  "  ought  "  idea  in  the  individual 
mind,  since  at  any  given  moment  it  consists 


214  Psychology  and  Ethics 

partly  of  a  residuum  from  previous  stages  of 
the  idea,  and  cannot  be  completely  analyzed 
without  a  view  of  these. 

When  the  child  A.  is  about  to  take  an  orange 
that  has  been  given  to  B.,  the  mother  makes 
him  understand  that  the  act  would  incur  her 
displeasure  and  possibly  other  pains.  He  thus 
learns  that  the  act  would  not  be  "  right."  Pre 
sently  he  learns  also  that  its  evil  consequences 
to  B.  are  a  part  of  its  "  wrongness  ; "  by  and  by 
these  perhaps  constitute  for  him  its  chief  wrong- 
ness.  But  he  learns  to  feel  at  the  same  time 
the  sense  of  his  mother's  outside  compelling 
power  upon  him  through  the  motive  of  her  dis 
pleasure  and  other  penalties.  "  She  obliges 
me  (forces  me  through  motives)  not  to  do  it," 
is  his  feeling.  "  I  am  under  obligation,  I  ought 
not  to  do  it."  Moreover,  by  sympathy  (which 
enters  into  training  more  than  is  ordinarily 
perceived),  catching  her  feeling,  he  comes  to 
feel  toward  himself,  on  occasion  of  such  an  act, 
as  he  has  perceived  her  to  feel  toward  him. 
So  grows  up  self-reproof.  From  God,  con 
ceived  as  a  higher  parent,  he  comes  to  expect 
a  similar  displeasure  ;  and  from  public  opinion 
still  another.  From  the  latter  alone,  indeed, 
the  idea  might  spring  up,  in  the  case  of  a 
person  growing  up  without  parent  or  religious 
training.  The  mature  man,  therefore,  is  likely 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  215 

to  have  in  his  consciousness  as  the  "  ought " 
idea  a  more  or  less  confused  mingling  of  the 
idea  of  the  parental  displeasure  (possibly  now 
a  mere  relic),  of  the  divine  displeasure  (possi 
bly  also  a  relic),  the  displeasure  of  public 
opinion,  and  the  displeasure  of  his  own  perma 
nent,  as  against  his  momentary,  self. 

In  many  minds  of  the  present  day  it  will 
furnish  a  clear  illustration  of  the  survival  of 
relics  of  ideas  in  the  moral  consciousness  to 
recall  their  own  experience  of  the  Sabbath- 
keeping  precepts  of  childhood.  If  (as  was 
true  in  the  writer's  case)  the  child  was  taught 
that  the  reading  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe "  on 
Sunday  was  a  wicked  act,  some  vague  idea  of 
an  "  ought "  connected  with  ordinary  employ 
ments  on  that  day  will  be  found  to  have  sur 
vived  a  long  time  beyond  any  acceptance  of  it 
by  the  mature  reason. 

It  is  an  interesting  inquiry,  again,  how  the 
word  "  ought "  came  to  be  used  in  the  growth 
of  our  language.  For  the  history  of  the  use  of 
a  word  throws  a  little  (however  uncertain) 
light  on  the  development  of  the  idea  in  the 
minds  of  our  forefathers.  The  word  appears 
in  the  earliest  known  form  of  the  language  as 
dh,  meaning  "  I  have,  I  own."  (This  present 
tense  seems  to  have  been,  earlier  still,  the  past 
of  a  verb  signifying  to  labor ;  and  to  have 


216  Psychology  and  Ethics 

come  to  mean,  therefore,  "  I  have  labored  and 
earned,  and  so  have.")  "  Ought  "  was  the  past 
tense  of  this  ah,  but  took  on  the  meaning  of 
the  present  tense.  It  is  important  to  notice 
that  ah  had  originally  in  English  the  sense  of 
"  I  own,"  not  "  I  owe."  The  latter  was  a  sec 
ondary  sense  that  grew  up  in  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  century.  From  the  sense  of  "  I 
have,"  it  came  to  be  used  with  to  as  a  kind  of 
auxiliary  verb  :  it  appears  about  the  year  1200 
as  "7  ah  to  don,"  "I  have  to  do,"  so  and  so. 
We  can  only  grope  here  in  conjectures,  but  the 
history  of  the  idea  seems  to  have  been,  "  I 
have  this  thing  to  do ; "  that  is,  "  it  has  been 
given  me  to  do,"  or  "  set  for  me  to  do."  That 
is  to  say,  "  I  ought,  I  am  obliged  (under  obli 
gation)  to  do  it ; "  "I  must  do  it,  or  something 
will  happen  to  me." 

From  its  frequent  occurrence  in  phrases 
with  to,  followed  by  a  verb,  like  the  above,  it 
seems  to  have  taken  on  the  sense  of  "  owe  "  in 
general. 

When,  then,  A.  says,  "  I  ought  not  to  kill 
B.,"  his  idea  —  so  far  as  the  history  of  the  use  of 
this  word  throws  any  glimmer  of  light  upon  it 
—  is  not  based  (as  often  seems  to  be  supposed) 
on  any  sense  of  "  owing  "  it  to  B.,  or  to  the  com 
munity,  or  the  Deity ;  for  the  word  was  used 
to  mean  "  ought  "  before  it  was  used  to  mean 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  217 

"owe/'  The  etymology  rather  points  to  a 
basis  in  the  sense  of  having  a  task  imposed  on 
him  by  an  outside  power,  or  by  his  own  per 
manent  self  with  penalties.  In  other  words, 
the  phrase,  "  I  owe  him  a  dollar,"  came  from  the 
thought,  "  I  have  to  pay  him  a  dollar,"  and  not 
vice  versa.  And  the  phrase,  "  I  ought  to  do 
this,"  came  from  the  thought,  "  I  have  to  do 
this,  I  must  do  it,"  and  not  vice  versa. 

Obligation,  then,  or  the  "  ought,"  as  a  state 
of  a  person  in  relation  to  a  proposed  action, 
reduces  under  analysis  to  a  liability  to  indefi 
nite  pains  and  penalties  from  some  superior 
power,  which  thus  compels  him  toward  or  from 
the  act.  And  the  connection  of  the  idea 
"  ought "  with  the  idea  "  right "  is  consummated 
when  we  arrive  at  the  conception  of  general 
ideas,  and  conceive  of  this  superior  power  — 
parental,  divine,  public,  or  that  of  our  own  per 
manent  self —  as  acting  in  accordance  with 
abstract  "right,"  or  that  which  conduces  to 
general  welfare. 

Thus  we  see  that  as  fast  as  the  conception  of 
higher  powers,  with  farther  reaching  penalties 
and  rewards,  comes  in,  the  idea  of  the  "ought" 
shifts  its  basis.  At  first  the  child's  "  ought " 
is  based  on  the  mandates  of  the  parent,  what 
ever  they  be.  When  he  becomes  aware  of  a 
higher  public  law,  the  felt  obligation  of  obedi- 


218  Psychology  and  Ethics 

ence  to  the  parent  is  modified  by  this  concep 
tion.  When,  further,  he  perceives  a  law  of 
abstract  "  right,"  higher  still  than  the  state,  or 
his  immediate  public  (as  in  the  question  of 
obeying  a  vicious  law),  his  "ought"  again  is 
modified.  At  last  he  comes  to  say  even  of  the 
Deity,  "  If  he  commanded  me  to  do  what  was 
unjust,  what  was  cruel,  what  was  not  right,  I 
would  not  obey :  "  because  he  divines  a  total 
of  things,  concerned  with  consequences  abso 
lutely  universal,  which  has  now  become  in  fact 
his  Deity.  It  is  the  conception,  as  the  poet 
embodies  it,  of  "  the  Quiet "  overruling  "  Se- 
tebos."  So  that  one's  final  "ought"  is  felt 
toward  what  is  conceived  as  the  hostility  of  the 
universe  against  evil,  and  its  friendliness  toward 
good. 

•And  here  we  reach  our  final  question,  so  far 
as  the  theoretical  discussion  of  the  basis  of 
morals  is  concerned.  "Good,"  "  welfare  "  — 
what  do  we  mean  by  these  words  ?  The 
"ought,"  we  have  said,  in  its  highest  develop 
ment,  becomes  a  perception  of  superior  powers 
working  for  the  good,  i.  e.  the  welfare,  of  all ; 
the  "  right,"  we  have  said,  is  such  action  as  is 
perceived  to  be  conducive  to  this  good  or  wel 
fare  of  all ;  but  what  "  good,"  what  "  welfare  "  ? 

Here  again  we  arrive  at  a  region  of  changing 
and  developing  standards.  There  are  many 


"Right"  and" Ought"  219 

words  which  remain  the  same,  but  represent 
different  ideas  in  any  individual  mind  at  differ 
ent  stages  of  growth,  or  in  different  minds  ;  as 
a  fossil  wood  retains  its  form,  but  new  parti 
cles  replace  the  old.  "Delightful,"  for  in 
stance,  has  a  sufficient  degree  of  identity  of 
connotation  to  serve  for  that  rude  sort  of  ap 
proximate  communication  between  minds  which 
makes  up  ordinary  speech  ;  but  the  word  really 
stands  for  many  various  and  indeed  contradic 
tory  ideas.  Take,  for  instance,  the  common 
phrase,  "a  delightful  book."  How  little  it 
tells  us  concerning  the  book,  unless  we  know 
who  utters  it.  So  of  the  words  "  good  "  and 
"  welfare : "  we  begin  perhaps  by  feeling  that 
physical  pleasure  is  the  "good"  thing.  It  is 
the  conception  of  infancy,  and  of  those  minds 
that  never  pass  beyond  the  infancy  of  the  intel 
lect.  To  such  the  "  welfare  "  of  a  man  would 
consist  in  being  all  one  sensual  nerve,  and  this 
perpetually  gratified.  But  there  develops  grad 
ually  in  the  mind  a  perception  that  pleasures 
grade  themselves  into  lower  and  higher.  We 
rate  the  soul  higher  than  the  body,  and  we 
rate  the  satisfaction  of  the  spirit  higher  than 
the  gratification  of  the  nerve.  There  arises  the 
conception  which  we  name  "  happiness."  This 
idea,  to  be  sure,  is  also  various  in  various 
minds.  But  on  the  whole  we  seem  to  mean  by 


220  Psychology  and  Ethics 

it  at  least  some  more  permanent  condition  of 
satisfaction  than  any  momentary  "pleasure;" 
and  on  the  whole  it  seems  to  stand,  to  any 
given  mind,  for  the  highest  sort  of  satisfaction 
it  knows.  But,  farther  on,  the  idea  of  happiness 
itself  rises.  The  word  begins  to  seem  inade 
quate.  It  did,  for  example,  to  Thomas  Carlyle, 
who  substituted  for  it  (in  "  Sartor  Resartus  ") 
the  word  "  blessedness,"  meaning  thereby  a  pos 
session  of  higher  satisfactions,  more  intellec 
tual,  more  spiritual,  than  the  term  "  happiness  " 
—  tarnished  as  it  is  by  its  use  for  mere  animal 
pleasures  —  seemed  able  to  express.  Least 
of  all  do  we  now  feel  satisfied  with  the  idea  of 
contentment  as  constituting  any  worthy  sort 
of  happiness.  "  Contented  ?  "  we  say.  "  It  is  a 
mere  negation  of  discontent.  The  swine  is 
contented  in  his  litter ;  the  mollusk  is  even 
more  contented  in  his  mud ;  the  lifeless  stone 
is  most  contented  of  all." 

And  at  this  point  we  begin  to  perceive  the 
essence  of  the  still  further  developing  idea  of 
welfare.  If  the  stone's  condition  is,  least  of 
all,  "  welfare,"  if  that  of  the  mollusk  is  but  a 
little  better,  and  so  on,  what  is  this  increas 
ing  element,  as  we  go  higher  in  the  grade  of 
existence,  that  approaches  more  and  more  our 
idea  of  real  "good,"  real  "welfare"?  It  is 
nothing  less  than  Being — conscious  existence. 


"  Right "  and  "  Ought  "  221 

completeness  of  life.  Why  does  intellectual  plea 
sure  seem  higher  to  us  than  animal  pleasure  ? 
Because  it  involves  more  of  the  man.  Why  did 
Carlyle's  "blessedness"  represent  to  him  a 
higher  idea  than  even  the  highest  happiness  ? 
Because  it  was  more  inclusive  —  because  it 
expressed  the  life  of  the  "  Spirit,"  the  feelings, 
the  will,  as  well  as  of  the  dry  intellect.  The 
highest  aspiration,  then,  comes  to  be  that  for 
increased  totality  of  conscious  life  —  in  all  the 
natural  human  powers,  of  body,  mind,  and 
spirit.  Those  courses  of  action  —  those  move 
ments  of  the  thought  or  the  feeling,  even  — 
which  tend  toward  narrowing,  belittling,  dwarf 
ing  the  man's  nature,  seem  bad  and  degrading. 
Those  actions  and  impulses  seem  lofty  which 
tend  toward  broadening,  deepening,  fulfilling 
the  stream  of  conscious  life.  We  cry  with  the 
poet,  - 

"  'T  is  life  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  I  want." 

And  we  feel  it  to  be  the  highest  promise  he 
could  make  when  Jesus  declared,  — 

"  I  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and 
that  they  might  have  it  more  abundantly" 

And  this  brings  us,  from  a  different  stand 
point,  to  Spencer's  conclusion  in  the  "  Data  of 
Ethics." 

At  the  same  time  with  this  progress  in  the 


222  Psychology  and  Ethics 

idea  of  welfare,  of  the  thing  most  to  be  desired, 
there  is  a  parallel  progress  in  the  idea  respect 
ing  the  persons  for  whom  we  most  desire  it. 
We  begin  by  craving  it  for  self.  Little  by  little 
the  desire  broadens  itself,  for  each  of  the  higher 
forms  of  good  in  turn  to  include  as  its  recipi 
ents  one's  family,  one's  friends,  one's  race,  one's 
universe.  The  highest  welfare,  the  greatest 
good,  the  summum  bonum,  is  at  last,  in  our  con 
ception,  the  attainment  of  the  highest  possible 
grade  of  development — the  conscious  posses 
sion  of  the  most  complete  possible  existence 
— by  all  beings.  And  by  "right"  we  mean 
what  promotes  this  ;  and  by  "  wrong  "  we  mean 
what  frustrates  this.  And  that  which  we  feel 
we  "ought"  to  do  is  that  toward  which  we 
feel  that  the  universal  powers  compel  us  by 
motives  of  these  recognized  consequences  to 
all. 

If  any  system  of  religious  ethics  has  held  up 
to  men  the  idea  of  physical  pleasure  as  the 
chief  reward,  and  physical  pain  as  the  chief 
punishment,  it  is  by  this  fact  seen  to  be  a  crude 
system.  Nor  does  it  elevate  the  standard  in 
kind  to  extend  this  pleasure  or  pain  to  all 
eternity.  We  recognize  in  innumerable  cases 
that  mere  pleasure  and  pain  are  no  true  tests 
of  "good  "  or  "  welfare."  The  man  would  not 
exchange  his  human  life  with  all  its  elements 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  223 

of  pain  for  the  swine's  life  with  all  its  elements 
of  pleasure.  The  higher  standard  is  so  wrought 
into  our  very  instincts  that  we  instantly  recog 
nize  the  completer  life  to  be  the  higher  or  more 
desirable  life,  regardless  of  any  question  of 
pleasure  or  pain.  Pleasure  is  no  doubt  a  good, 
insomuch  as  it  promotes  a  more  abounding 
life ;  and  pain  is  no  doubt  an  evil,  insomuch 
as  it  represses  or  destroys  life.  But  given  the 
abounding  life,  and  we  feel  that  it  would  be  a 
higher  choice  to  take  pain  with  the  great  life 
than  to  take  pleasure  with  the  little  life.  Our 
sympathy  and  admiration  go  out  to  the  suffer 
ing  Prometheus  rather  than  to  the  voluptuous 
Jove.  We  could  rather  worship  —  yea,  envy  — 
the  eternal  martyr  than  the  eternal  swine. 

And  now,  finally,  it  will  be  asked,  If  the  test 
of  the  good,  of  the  true  welfare,  is  its  satisfac 
tion  of  the  desire  for  abounding  life,  how  can 
we  be  sure  that  this  is  the  "  highest "  satisfac 
tion,  that  this  is  the  "highest"  desire?  In 
other  words,  what  is  the  test  of  our  test1} 

We  are  well  aware  that  here  we  reach  a 
chasm  which  very  many  persons  will  be  unpre 
pared  to  cross  with  us.  We  shall  cross  safely, 
but  the  bridge  is  not  such  as  tempts  the  unac 
customed  eye. 

For  our  answer  can  only  be,  There  is  no  test 
except  the  existence  of  the  desire  itself.  We 


224  Psychology  and  Ethics 

find  by  actual  observation  that  in  fact  this  is 
the  paramount  desire  of  man.  To  satisfy  it 
seems  to  him  the  highest  satisfaction,  and  there 
fore  it  seems  to  him  the  highest  desire.  "  But 
can  he  not  in  some  way  know  whether  it  is 
the  highest  ?  "  We  answer,  There  is  no  other 
meaning  to  this  word  "highest,"  itself,  under 
complete  analysis,  than  "what  is  found  to  be- 
in  fact —  paramount  in  human  estimation." 

"  But,"  it  will  be  objected,  "  the  soul  finds  in 
itself  many  desires.  At  one  time  one  is  strong 
est,  at  other  times  another.  How  determine 
which  of  these  is  the  paramount  desire  ? "  We 
answer,  We  can  only  count  that  highest  which  is 
the  most  permanent  and  the  paramount  desire 
of  the  sanest  and  completest  men.  This  desire 
we  take  as  the  test,  not  on  the  ground  that  it 
pleases  us  to  take  it ;  not  because  we  are  de 
void  of  the  craving  for  some  more  certain 
sanction ;  not  from  any  consideration  of  its 
convenience  in  instruction,  or  in  supporting 
this  or  that  institution  or  creed  ;  but  we  take  it 
because  the  honest  truth  appears  to  be  that  we 
have  that,  and  we  have  no  other.  We  may 
invent  or  imagine  as  many  as  we  please,  but, 
like  it  or  not,  conceive  it  to  be  safe  or  not,  this 
—  the  mind's  sane  estimate  of  what  is  most 
desirable  —  is  the  only  one  that  does  actually 
in  fact  exist  for  us. 


"  Right  "and11  Ought "  22  5 

Many  persons  take  such  a  view  of  the  uni 
verse  as  allows  them  to  believe  that  they  can 
contrive  some  safer  way  for  men  than  the  open 
sight  of  the  actual  truth.  Even  for  themselves, 
some  feel  that  it  is  more  desirable  to  retain 
agreeable  illusions  than  to  allow  them  to  be 
torn  away.  These  persons  will  prefer  to  say 
concerning  the  test  of  right  and  duty,  Such  and 
such  standards  have  been  handed  down  from 
the  past,  and  it  is  easiest  for  me  and  safest  for 
the  world  to  believe  that  the  past  had  some 
superior  wisdom  in  setting  up  these  standards. 
"God's  will,"  for  example,  is  offered  as  the 
true  test.  But  how  do  we  know  what  is  God's 
will  ?  He  has  revealed  it,  it  will  be  said,  in 
the  Bible.  But  why  should  we  believe  this  is  a 
revelation  from  God,  seeing  that  it  was  written 
by  men,  and  appears  to  be  so  similar  to  what 
men  have  all  along  been  accustomed  to  write 
elsewhere  ?  Because  these  particular  men  claim 
to  have  heard  God  say  these  things.  But  why 
believe  such  a  strange  claim  when  we  should 
not  think  of  believing  it  if  any  of  our  neighbors 
made  it  ?  Because,  it  will  be  said,  it  was  made 
a  long  time  ago,  and  has  been  for  a  long  time 
believed.  But  are  there  not  many  beliefs  of 
great  antiquity  which  have  turned  out  to  be 
erroneous  ? 

At  some  such  point  the  mind  of  the  person 


226  Psychology  and  Ethics 

who  insists  on  the  existence  of  some  supernat- 
urally  revealed  and  infallible  test  for  morals 
is  apt  to  turn  to  this  other  support  for  his  con 
fidence  in  the  Bible  as  a  basis :  its  own  inter 
nal  evidence  of  a  divine  character.  "These 
commands,"  he  says,  "  are  evidently  divine, 
because  they  are  right ;  because  they  are  the 
highest  and  best  in  the  world."  But  by  what 
test  right  and  highest  and  best  ?  It  is  the 
"vicious  circle"  again. 

There  is  no  possible  answer,  try  as  we  may 
to  avoid  it,  but  the  answer  we  have  already 
given  :  the  test  which  the  mind  finds  itself  in 
fact  applying  is  the  only  test.  That  to  man  is 
"best"  which  he  most  desires.  That  desire  is 
the  best  which  is  his  paramount  and  most  per 
manent  desire.  And  that  desire  is,  if  we  con 
sult  mankind  in  general,  if  we  consult  our  own 
consciousness,  or  all  history  and  all  literature, 
the  desire  for  a  "good"  or  "welfare"  consist 
ing  of  the  greatest  possible  total  of  conscious 
life. 

This  desire  for  abounding  life  conceals  itself 
under  many  more  visible  desires.  It  lies,  how 
ever,  hidden  under  our  craving  for  society, 
which  stimulates  and  calls  out  increased  activ 
ity  of  all  our  powers ;  under  our  craving  for 
solitude,  when  now  too  much  society  serves 
only  to  repress  and  confine  the  greater  activity 


"Right"  and11  Ought"  227 

of  our  own  mind  and  spirit ;  under  our  enjoy 
ment  of  music,  which  fulfills  not  only  the  possi 
ble  capacity  of  the  mere  sense  of  hearing,  but 
awakens  a  world  of  inner  life,  in  memories  and 
dreams ;  under  our  pleasure  in  all  art  and  lit 
erature,  which  at  once  give  wings  and  a  wider 
horizon  to  the  mind  ;  under  our  passion  for 
broader  truth,  which  (linking  many  facts  in 
one)  gives  the  intellect  a  clearer  and  more  in 
clusive  grasp  —  a  completer  life  of  knowing ; 
under,  at  last,  as  we  have  seen,  our  aspiration 
for  the  highest  "  good  "  of  all,  which  is  but 
another  name  for  the  completest  satisfaction, 
for  all,  of  this  highest  desire. 

If  any  one  says,  "This  is  not  the  highest 
good  thing,  or  summum  bonum"  he  is  merely 
saying  (if  we  push  the  statement  to  the  furthest 
analysis),  "  This  is  not  what  /  find  most  desir 
able  —  that  is  to  say,  what  /  most  desire."  It 
becomes,  then,  merely  a  question  as  to  whose 
desire  is  to  be  the  final  arbiter;  and  we  find 
none  better  than  the  desire  of  those  who  are 
the  sanest  and  completest  men  —  and  in  them, 
the  permanent  judgment,  not  any  momentary 
whim. 

It  would  not  be  true  to  say,  as  might  be  said 
by  some  one  who  looked  no  deeper  than  the 
surface  of  the  matter,  that  this  leaves  every 
man  a  law  unto  himself;  or  that  it  leaves 


228  Psychology  and  Ethics 

every  man  to  do  what  seems  good  in  his  own 
eyes.  On  the  contrary,  it  sends  a  man  for  his 
true  law  to  the  dictates  of  universal  reason, 
against  his  personal  passion,  to  what  seems 
good,  in  the  eyes  of  all  sane  and  sober  judg 
ments,  against  the  troubled  vision  of  his  mo 
mentary  desire. 

This  is,  as  we  have  said,  no  new  test ;  it  is 
that  to  which  all  moral  precepts  and  principles 
have  in  reality  been  subjected  from  the  begin 
ning.  Whatever  sacred  books,  whatever  divine 
revelations,  whatever  commandments  written 
upon  tables  of  brass  or  stone,  have  been 
adopted,  have  been  adopted  after  being  sub 
jected  to  this  test.  The  Ten  Commandments, 
the  Golden  Rule,  find  and  always  have  found 
in  this  their  real  sanction.  And  if  to-morrow 
a  code  of  moral  rules  were  suddenly  seen  writ 
ten  in  golden  letters  across  the  sky  at  noon 
day,  so  that  it  should  be  said  everywhere,  "  It 
cannot  have  come  by  any  human  means;  it 
must  be  a  revelation  of  the  Deity,"  what  would 
be  the  necessary  action  of  our  minds  upon  it  ? 
We  should  necessarily  do  just  what  we  have 
always  done  with  Vedas,  Korans,  and  Bibles. 
We  should  bring  it  to  the  test  of  the  judg 
ment  of  the  human  reason.  We  should  ask, 
first  of  all,  "Are  these  precepts  right ?"  If 
the  reason  declared  them  wrong,  we  should  re- 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  229 

ject  them,  no  matter  what  appeared  to  be  their 
origin.  If  the  stone  tables  had  commanded, 
"Thou  shalt  steal,"  and  "Thou  shalt  kill," 
the  human  reason  would  have  declared  them 
wrong,  and  rejected  them.  If  the  Golden  Rule 
were,  "  Hate  thy  neighbor,  and  do  him  evil," 
there  would  have  been  the  same  verdict  and 
result.  And  by  what  test  ?  By  this  same  old 
test,  which,  be  we  satisfied  with  it  or  not,  is  all 
we  have  :  the  test  of  consequences,  as  affecting 
human  welfare,  as  promoting  or  frustrating 
what  seems  most  desirable  to  men ;  that  is  to 
say,  the  satisfaction  of  the  highest  human  de 
sire,  the  desire  for  true  and  full  existence. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is  not,  then,  right  be 
cause  it  is  in  the  Bible.  It  is  in  the  Bible 
because,  by  the  test  of  human  judgment,  it  is 
right.  Or  rather,  that  book  in  which  it  is  found 
is  held  to  be  "  The  Bible,"  because  these  pre 
cepts  found  there  are  by  the  human  reason 
judged  to  be  right.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself  "  is  not  a  divine  command 
because  Jesus  uttered  it,  but  Jesus  is  ac 
counted  divine  because  he  uttered  such  com 
mands.  If  one  dislikes  to  accept  this  state 
ment,  let  him  test  its  validity  by  asking  himself, 
as  before,  If  Jesus  had  uttered  precisely  con 
trary  commands  to  these,  what  character  should 
we  attribute  to  him  ?  To  die  for  others  is  not 


230  Psychology  and  Ethics 

a  divine  act  because  Jesus  did  so,  but  that  he 
did  so  is  his  highest  claim  to  men's  acceptance 
as  a  divine  being.  And  by  what  test?  Always 
by  this  same  test,  —  there  is  no  other  possible, 
—  that  these  noble  precepts  and  actions  are 
recognized  as  being  such  as  universally  pro 
mote  welfare.  And  what  welfare  ?  That  which 
men  universally  seek  as  the  most  desirable,  — 
abounding  life.  Not  animal  pleasure,  for  when 
ever  it  clashes  with  this  we  decide  against  it ; 
not  merely  our  own  pleasure,  even  of  the  intel 
lect  and  spirit,  for  whenever  these  clash  with 
its  attainment  by  others,  we  decide  against  it ; 
not  merely  happiness,  even  of  the  purest  kind, 
and  even  for  others,  unless,  indeed,  we  lift  the 
word  "  happiness  "  above  any  ordinary  use  of 
it,  and  make  it  stand  for  this  highest  welfare 
itself ;  for  in  case  of  the  alternative  we  esteem 
it  better  to  be  unhappy  with  abounding  life 
than  to  be  happy  at  any  lower  stage  of  being. 

But  in  reality  no  such  alternative  as  this  last 
is  possible,  except  as  an  imaginary  hypothesis, 
for  it  is  the  very  characteristic  of  happiness  of 
every  desirable  sort  that  it  promotes  life ;  and 
of  pain,  that  it  represses  and  tends  to  destroy 
life.  Happiness  is  therefore  a  thing  worthy 
of  pursuit,  as  a  means.  Even  pleasure  is  a 
good  thing,  still  as  a  means.  Nor  can  it  ever 
be  a  bad  or  wrong  thing  unless  it  contravene 


"Right"  and  "Ought"  231 

the  law  of  right ;  unless,  that  is  to  say,  it  tends 
to  oppose  the  highest  welfare  of  self  or  others. 

The  more  one  contemplates  the  human  story 
in  the  past,  or  the  human  life  as  it  goes  on 
about  us  in  the  present,  the  more  one  realizes 
the  truth  of  this  generalization,  that  the  desire 
for  abounding  life  is  the  paramount  desire  of 
man.  There  is  hardly  an  activity  but  goes 
back  to  this  for  its  mainspring,  hardly  a  de 
sire  but  rests  upon  this  deeper  desire.  All  his 
tory  is  the  record  of  man's  efforts  to  attain 
personal  liberty ;  and  this  liberty  —  for  which 
so  many  battles  have  been  fought,  and  dynas 
ties  overturned,  and  blood  spilled  —  is  only 
the  riddance  from  whatever  hampered  large 
action  and  large  living.  It  was  the  longing 
for  "  more  life  and  fuller,"  not  for  self  only 
but  for  all,  that  made  the  heroes  and  martyrs 
of  the  long  struggle  for  free  government.  It 
was  so  of  the  struggle  for  religious  liberty,  so 
for  liberty  of  thought.  Freedom  to  do  and  be, 
to  the  utmost  limits  of  each  individual's  possi 
bility,  was  the  prize  they  sought. 

The  history  of  the  efforts  of  women  toward 
emancipation  from  personal  and  social  tyranny 
illustrates  the  working  of  this  same  funda 
mental  desire.  It  has  not  been  so  much  any 
increase  of  pleasure  they  have  sought,  or  for  a 
position  where  they  could  be  more  happy,  in 


232  Psychology  and  Ethics 

any  mere  sense  of  being  contented,  but  the 
liberty  to  live  larger  lives,  to  be  more,  to  have 
in  themselves  an  increased  total  of  the  com 
mon  human  existence. 

The  history  of  all  art  is  but  another  such 
illustration.  Form  after  form  of  art  has  been 
developed  under  the  pressure  of  this  same  de 
sire  to  live  in  large  worlds,  to  give  the  whole 
soul  its  fullest  activity  of  life  —  if  not  through 
the  actual  surroundings,  with  their  narrowing 
and  deadening  influences,  then  through  the 
nerves  of  the  receptive  imagination,  that  can 
vibrate  to  the  touch  of  the  creative  imagina 
tion  of  the  artist,  and  dream  the  gardens  of 
paradise  in  a  desert,  or  heaven  in  hell.  Music, 
architecture,  sculpture,  painting,  all  have  their 
hold  on  men  through  the  fact  that  in  the  first 
place  these  sounds  and  forms  and  colors  give 
the  mere  sense  its  fullest  possible  activity  (as 
the  chord  depends  for  its  delightfulness  on  its 
giving  the  ear  a  larger  total  of  effect  than  is 
possible  in  the  single  tone,  or  the  discord ;  and 
as  the  line  of  beauty,  the  double  waving  curve, 
does  the  same  for  the  eye)  ;  and  in  the  second 
place,  the  fact  that  through  the  effect  of  these 
arts  on  the  imagination,  the  feelings,  the  rea 
son,  they  waken  to  stir  —  for  the  moment  at 
least  —  the  whole  man,  that  was  half  dormant 
before,  into  full  and  abounding  life. 


233 

So,  finally,  the  history  of  literature  illustrates 
once  more  the  working  of  this  same  paramount 
desire.  The  drama  has  moved  and  delighted 
men  because  it  brought  into  their  conscious 
existence  a  wealth  of  other  scenes  and  more 
varied  activity.  It  enabled  them,  for  the  one 
brief  hour,  to  live  through  the  emotions  and  ac 
tions  of  many  souls  —  to  compress  into  a  few 
rich  moments  the  whole  destinies  of  men  or 
empires,  made  their  own  through  the  tumult  of 
the  inner  life.  Fiction,  from  its  first  crude  be 
ginnings  in  some  Hebrew  or  Arabic  tale  to  the 
novel  of  Scott  or  George  Eliot,  has  been  but 
the  outcome  of  this  same  irrepressible  craving 
to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  our  own  narrow  exist 
ence  through  the  inner  experience  of  the  for 
tunes,  the  joys,  the  woes,  of  an  imaginary  world. 
Poetry,  with  its  "  eternal  passion,  eternal  pain," 
has  both  been  the  expression  of  this  hunger  for 
a  fuller  life  in  the  poet,  and  has  fed  the  sacred 
fire  of  this  aspiration  in  the  world. 

And  of  the  relative  value  of  all  art,  as  of 
all  literature,  this  furnishes  the  only  true  and 
rational  test :  what  has  it  added  to  the  inner 
life  ?  That  symphony,  that  painting,  that  poem 
is  greatest  which  more  than  any  other  has  had 
for  its  effect  in  the  world  "  that  we  might  have 
life  "  —  the  inner  life,  and  through  that  the 
outer  also  —  "  and  that  we  might  have  it  more 
abundantly." 


234  Psychology  and  Ethics 

And  so  at  last,  to  return  to  our  starting- 
point,  in  morals  also :  that  impulse,  that  choice, 
that  action  is  the  most  "  right,"  is  the  highest 
"  duty,"  which  most  tends  to  satisfy  this  para 
mount  human  desire  and  aspiration,  for  that 
fuller  and  more  abounding  life  which  is  not 
only  the  goal  of  all  unconscious  progress,  work 
ing  in  the  dark  of  natural  forces,  but  of  all 
conscious  wishes  and  purposes,  working  in  the 
light  of  the  human  reason  and  will. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF   INTERRUP 
TIONS 

THERE  is  a  certain  small  and  yet  in  the  long 
run  important  hindrance  that  I  often  encoun 
ter  in  the  act  of  writing,  for  which  I  should 
very  much  like  to  find  the  exact  psychological 
explanation.  It  is  very  possibly  a  common 
experience  with  all  toilers  in  pen  and  ink. 
When  I  am  deeply  absorbed  in  a  piece  of 
work,  and  my  whole  mind  is  fixed  on  a  train 
of  thought  which  I  am  trying  to  follow  out  and 
express  in  precise  language,  a  sudden  interrup 
tion  (as  by  my  wife's  asking  me  a  question) 
causes  a  peculiar  and  specific  mental  wrench 
or  jar  that  is  more  than  an  annoyance,  and 
amounts  to  a  positive  pain.  What  is  it  that 
happens  in  the  brain  as  the  physical  concomi 
tant  or  cause  of  this  ?  I  observe  that  the  shock 
varies  in  intensity  with  the  completeness  of  the 
absorption  or  abstraction  of  the  mind  in  its 
work.  This  is  so  much  a  matter  of  instinct 
that  I  find  myself,  during  any  perceived  liabil 
ity  to  such  interruption,  withholding  my  atten 
tion  from  complete  concentration  on  my  writ- 


236  Psychology  and  Ethics 

ing,  in  order  to  lessen  the  force  of  the  painful 
blow  that  I  feel  may  come  at  any  moment. 
(This  secondary  effort,  by  the  way,  or  voluntary 
restraining  of  the  mind  from  its  desired  track, 
always  seems  to  produce  in  me,  no  matter  how 
much  I  may  resist  it,  a  kind  of  irritation  or  sub- 
irritation  of  temper,  after  a  little,  which  soon 
destroys  the  possibility  of  any  satisfactory  pro 
duction.)  Is  the  physical  explanation  of  this 
interruption-shock,  perhaps,  that  the  sudden 
back-flow  of  the  nerve  currents,  inundating 
tracts  in  the  brain  left  empty  by  the  concentra 
tion  of  the  whole  mind  on  its  task,  gives  a  kind 
of  stab  or  jerk  to  the  nervous  centres  ?  And 
does  the  effort  to  withhold  a  part  of  the  atten 
tion,  while  consciously  subject  to  interruption, 
correspond,  physically,  to  a  forcible  keeping  of 
all  the  channels  partially  filled  against  a  too 
sudden  wave,  or  jet,  of  energy  ? 

The  condition  of  things  in  the  mind  at  such 
a  time  always  seems  to  me  (to  suggest  it  by  the 
merest  inadequate  hint  of  metaphor)  as  if  the 
effort  to  hold  and  carry  on  a  train  of  thought 
were  a  muscular  struggle,  while  grasping  tightly 
a  number  of  separate  lengths  of  bamboo  rod  to 
keep  them  close  together,  end  to  end,  and  in  a 
perfectly  straight  line,  as  the  necessary  condi 
tion  of  having  a  new  length  continually  sprout 
out  from  the  growing  extremity.  Now  if,  at 


The  Psychology  of  Interruptions     237 

the  moment  when  every  nerve  is  strained  to 
hold  these  pieces  in  position,  some  one  were  to 
give  us  a  sudden  shove  in  the  back,  —  such 
seems  the  kind  of  interruption  I  speak  of. 

Whatever  be  the  correct  explanation  of  the 
phenomenon,  the  suffering  and  hindrance  from 
it  are  considerable  in  the  course  of  a  lifetime ; 
and  we  hereby  bring  it  to  the  attention  of  the 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Wri — 
But,  come  to  think,  there  is  no  such  benevo 
lent  organization  as  yet  in  existence. 


THE  BREAD-AND-BUTTER  MOMENTS 
OF  THE  MIND 

IT  is  astonishing  how  insensible  we  some 
times  are  to  the  most  beautiful  or  sublime  spec 
tacles.  Noble  scenes,  which  at  another  time 
would  inspire  the  imagination  and  thrill  the 
heart  with  a  tumult  of  emotions,  now  unfold 
their  glory  before  our  unmoved  eyes,  and  the 
humdrum  thoughts  plod  along  their  accus 
tomed  way.  Travelers  know  this  phenomenon 
very  well.  Ely  Cathedral  lives  in  my  memory 
as  a  delicious  vision  of  solemn  loveliness  ;  but 
when  my  friends  praise  York  Minster,  I  hardly 
recall  that  I  was  ever  there.  This  indifference 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  in  York  my 
brain  happened  to  be  dough  or  putty  for  the 
time  being,  and  in  no  respect  on  the  architec 
ture  of  the  minster.  I  remember  that  George 
Sand  had  this  experience  in  her  voyage  to 
Italy.  In  the  "  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  "  she  says  : 

*'  Je  poursuivis  mon  voyage  quand  meme,  ne 
souffrant  pas,  mais  peu  a  peu  si  abrutie  par  les 
frissons,  les  de'faillances  et  la  somnolence,  que 
je  vis  Pise  et  le  Campo  Santo  avec  une  grande 


The  Bread -and-Butter  Moments     239 

apathie.  II  me  devint  meme  indifferent  de 
suivre  une  direction  ou  ime  autre  ;  Rome  et 
Venise  furent  jouees  a  pile  ou  face.  Venise 
face  retomba  dix  fois  sur  le  plancher.  J'y 
voulus  voir  une  destined,  et  je  partis  pour 
Venise  par  Florence.  .  .  .  Je  vis  toutes  les 
belles  choses  qu'il  fallait  voir,  .  .  .  mais  j'e'tais 
glace'e,  et,  en  regardant  le  Persee  de  Cellini  et 
la  Chapelle  carre'e  de  Michel  Ange,  il  me 
semblait,  par  moments,  que  j'e'tais  statue  moi- 
meme.  La  nuit,  je  revais  que  je  devenais  mo- 
sai'que  et  je  comptais  attentivement  mes  petits 
carres  de  lapis  et  de  jaspe." 

But  the  same  phlegmatic  seizure  often  occurs 
to  us  at  home  and  in  familiar  surroundings. 
Three  nights  ago,  standing  at  my  window,  I 
saw  the  full  moon  rise  superbly  through  a  low 
horizon  drapery  of  shadowed  cloud-folds ;  and 
I  said  to  myself,  Let  us  go  walk  in  the  garden, 
and  drink  in  the  splendor  of  this  celestial  spec 
tacle.  So  I  sought  my  favorite  pacing-ground, 
a  wide  path  from  the  round  rose-bed  to  the 
elm -tree,  running  between  lines  of  stately 
cannas.  There  had  been  purifying  rain,  and 
the  sky  was  deepened  to  its  most  lustrous 
dark ;  the  soft  billow-edges  of  the  few  fleeces, 
swimming  over  across  the  big  moon,  caught, 
turn  by  turn,  a  faint  tinge  of  halo  colors.  The 
moon  was  dazzling.  Who  can  believe  that 


240  Psychology  and  Ethics 

mere  sunshine,  falling  on  mere  rock  and  sand, 
will  reflect  such  a  white-cold  intensity  of  light  ? 
I  gazed  intently  on  the  blinding  shield,  as  if  to 
compel  it  to  seem  to  me  what  it  really  is,  — 
the  big  globe,  rolling  there,  dizzily  unsupported, 
in  empty  space.  I  said,  "  That  distance  across 
the  bulging  disk  is  about  that  which  the  Pacific 
Railroad  traverses  across  our  continent.  Let 
me  try  to  imagine  the  little  train,  full  of  earth 
inhabitants,  creeping  in  a  curve  around  yonder 
point  of  shadow,  and  across  the  bridgeless 
nose  of  the  man  in  the  moon."  For  an  in 
stant  the  conception  of  the  globular  form  and 
the  enormous  bulk,  swinging  on  its  rounds, 
almost  touched  on  the  confines  of  my  expectant 
imagination  ;  then  fled  away  unseizable,  and 
left  but  the  silvery  spot,  stuck  there  inade 
quately  against  the  blue  ceiling,  so  ridiculously 
near  that  even  the  lighter  clouds  pass  behind, 
instead  of  before  it,  and  a  venturous  balloon 
might  be  capable  of  bumping  it  at  any  rash 
discharge  of  ballast. 

Then  I  took  up  my  pacing  back  and  forth. 
The  broad  silvered  leaves  of  the  cannas  seemed 
to  float  motionless  in  the  great  flood  of  light, 
and  beneath  each  hung  its  motionless  black 
shade.  Every  shadow  of  every  delicate  bough 
and  twig  of  the  beech  and  the  elm  was  lace ; 
and  bough  and  twig  themselves,  less  distinct 


The  Bread-and-Butter  Moments     241 

and  more  ethereal  than  their  shadows,  were 
only  the  mentally  conceived  patterns,  or  Pla 
tonic  Ideas,  of  the  lace,  hovering  above  it  in 
the  air.  What  a  mysterious  and  glorious  night, 
and  what  subtlest  and  most  celestial  dreams 
should  throng  the  brain  at  such  an  hour ! 
Back  and  forth,  to  and  fro,  I  paced  ;  and  what, 
think  you,  were  the  sublime  ideas  I  found  in 
my  brain,  as  I  suddenly  became  aware  of  my 
self,  after  some  minutes  of  floating  in  that  sea 
of  twice  -  distilled  and  space  -  traversing  radi 
ance  ?  I  was  listening  with  lively  displeasure 
to  the  squeaking  of  my  own  new  shoes.  I  was 
thinking,  "  How  can  this  intolerable  thing  be 
cured  ? "  I  was  picturing  in  my  imagination 
the  sedulous  shoemaker,  anxiously  handling 
the  superinteguments,  and  discussing  with  me 
the  possible  ways  and  means  of  silencing  this 
music  of  abandoned  soles.  I  remembered  that 
some  one  had  once  recommended  a  hypoder 
mic  injection  of  pumice-stone.  As  I  turned 
from  the  shadow  back  into  the  full  flood  of 
radiance,  I  found  myself  wondering  whether 
the  leathern  layers  would  have  to  be  unstitched, 
or  whether  anything  could  be  done  with  a 
gimlet. 

I  saw  that  the  whole  magnificent  spectacle 
of  the  night  was  being  wasted  on  such  an  insect 
as  I,  and  that  the  most  suitable  scheme  was  to 
go  ingloriously  to  bed. 


THE   SLIPPERINESS   OF   CERTAIN 
WORDS 

NEXT  to  the  pleasure  of  finding  ourselves 
different  from  people  in  general  with  regard 
to  great  matters  is  the  pleasure  of  discovering 
our  identity  with  them  in  small  matters.  For 
my  own  part,  at  least,  I  like  to  know  that  I  am 
not  so  eccentric  as  I  may  have  feared  in  vari 
ous  little  "  tricks  and  manners  "  of  my  body  or 
my  mind."  I  am  always  pleased  to  meet  people 
who  wear  their  thumbs  inside  their  shut  hand  ; 
and  who  have  square-toed  shoes ;  and  who  like 
the  smell  of  catnip  and  the  taste  of  some  cates 
when  a  little  burnt ;  and  who  reluct  at  shaking 
hands ;  and  who  never  sharpen  the  lead  of  a 
pencil ;  and  who  say  "  good-morning "  to  the 
servants ;  and  who  reject  the  use  of  a  spoon, 
as  being  a  thing  to  take  powders  in,  or  the 
milder  nourishments  of  helpless  infancy. 

So  it  would  be  a  gratification  to  me  to  know 
that  others  are  subject  to  a  habit  of  the  mind 
which  has  always  clung  to  me,  and  which  I 
suspect  of  being  nearly  universal.  I  mean  the 
habit  of  forgetting  certain  words,  which  have 


The  Slipperiness  of  Certain  Words    243 

been  reached  for  and  have  slipped  away  so 
many  times  that  they  have  become  perma 
nently  slippery,  at  least  about  the  handle. 
There  are  words  which  are  such  old  offenders 
in  this  way  that  I  feel  their  vicinity  before  I 
get  to  them,  in  speaking  or  writing,  and  I  say 
to  myself,  There  !  I  shall  have  a  time,  now,  to 
get  hold  of  that  word  !  —  and  so  I  always  do. 
Peremptory  is  one  of  these  slippery  words,  with 
me.  Complacent  is  another.  Sententious  is  a 
third.  And  there  is  still  another,  which  even 
now,  as  I  sought  it  for  an  example,  escaped 
my  grasp,  "  as  slipper  as  an  eeles  sliding  :  "  it 
is  the  word  deprecatory.  The  way  I  took  to 
find  it  and  seize  upon  it,  just  at  this  moment, 
was  by  keeping  before  my  mind's  eye  the 
image  of  a  humble  small  dog  standing  before 
a  haughty  big  one,  in  momentary  doubt  as  to 
whether  the  tail  will  wag  or  the  jaws  will  de 
vour.  By  keeping  this  picture  vividly  present 
to  one  lobe  of  the  brain,  while  the  other  lobe 
strained  every  nerve  to  seize  the  initial  syllable, 
vaguely  felt  (that  most  mysterious  state  of  the 
mind)  to  be  just  hovering  on  the  very  edge  of 
the  memory,  "  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue,"  as  we 
saV)  —  thus  at  last  I  clutched  it  and  drew  it  in. 
There  are  certain  proper  names  that  have 
become  thus  polished  on  the  handle ;  that  is  to 
say,  on  the  initial  syllable.  Sometimes  I  sue- 


244  Psychology  and  Ethics 

ceed  in  getting  them  by  working  at  the  other 
end,  and  the  final  syllable  drags  in  the  unwill 
ing  first.  My  best  reliance,  however,  is  in  the 
alphabet.  By  beginning  at  a,  b,  c,  and  going 
slowly  down  the  letters,  watching  closely  for 
the  least  sign  of  recognition,  the  smallest  indi 
cation  of  that  chemical  affinity  or  magnetic  at 
traction  which  the  mental  image  of  the  person 
shows  for  its  proper  title  when  you  come  to  its 
initial  letter,  I  can  commonly  find  the  required 
proper  name.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  I 
have  to  give  it  up,  for  the  moment,  and  by 
and  by,  when  engaged  about  something  else,  it 
"comes  to  me,"  as  the  result  of  unconscious 
cerebration.  I  have  an  acquaintance  named 
Bonstead,  a  most  excellent  dealer  in  some  of 
the  necessaries  of  life.  If  he  had  any  idea 
how  I  have  struggled  with  his  name,  I  believe 
he  would  hardly  consider  it  friendly  conduct 
on  his  part  not  to  go  and  have  it  changed. 
Now  there  is  no  assignable  reason  why  this 
name  should  slip  my  memory  more  than  others. 
It  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  a  name  of  good  augury, 
and  has  been  borne  by  admirable  people.  To 
another  mind  my  own  name,  or  that  of  the 
reader,  would  as  likely  be  the  erring  one.  And 
so  of  the  few  exceptional  words  cited  above. 
Another  memory  will  doubtless  have  entirely 
different  examples.  My  explanation  is  that 


The  Slipperiness  of  Certain  Words    245 

these  happen  to  be  words  of  which,  for  some 
purely  accidental  reason,  I  got  but  a  feeble 
hold  when  first  encountered;  so  that,  having 
slipped  once,  and  again,  and  still  again,  they 
acquired  the  habit  of  slipping,  and  became  per 
manently  slippery. 


THE  ETHICS  OF  THE  PLANK  AT  SEA 

CONTRARY  to  my  custom,  I  showed  some 
verses  —  before  the  ink  and  my  affection  for 
them  had  taken  the  time  to  dry  —  to  a  critical 
friend.  Now  this  lady's  mind  is  so  constructed 
that  when  you  attack  it  with  ever  so  casual  a 
remark  or  question  you  never  know  what  may 
happen.  On  this  occasion  what  happened  was 
a  discussion  in  ethics.  But  I  had  better  give 
the  lines  first  of  all  :  — 

HIS  NEIGHBOR  AS   HIMSELF. 

Black  the  storming  ocean,  crests  that  leap  and  whelm  ; 
Ship  a  tumbling  ruin,  stripped  of  spar  and  helm. 
Now  she  shudders  upward,  strangled  with  a  sea; 
Then  she  hangs  a  moment,  and  the  moon  breaks  free 
On  her  huddled  creatures,  waiting  but  to  drown, 
As  she  reels  and  staggers,  ready  to  go  down. 

Crash  !  the  glassy  mountain  whirls  her  to  her  grave. 
In  the  foam  three  struggle ;  one  his  love  will  save. 
There 's  a  plank  for  two,  but,  as  he  lifts  her  there, 
Lo  !  his  rival  sinking  ;  eyes  that  clutch  despair. 
Only  a  swift  instant  left  him  to  decide,  — 
ShaU  he  drown,  and  yield  the  other  life  and  bride  ? 


The  Ethics  of  the  Plank  at  Sea     247 

In  the  peacefu-1  morning  stays  a  snowy  sail. 
Two  afloat,  —  one  missing.    Which  one  ?    Did  he  fail,  — 
Coward,  merely  man  ?    Or  did  the  great  sea  darken  eyes 
All  divinely  shining  with  self-sacrifice  ? 

I  waited  while  she  read  them.  Then  I  waited 
while  she  read  them  again.  Then  there  was  a 
pause,  and  I  said,  "  Well  ?  "  Then  there  was 
more  pause,  during  which  the  mercury  of  my 
estimate  of  the  verses  slowly  sank.  Then  I 
said,  humbly,  "  I  did  think  of  sending  them  to 
The  Magazine." 

"  Yes,"  said  she  slowly.  (The  mercury  con 
tinued  to  go  down.)  "  But  I  don't  believe  in 
the  ethics  of  it." 

"  Is  that  all  ?  "  said  I  brightly. 

"  Is  that  all?  "  said  she  darkly. 

"Well,  then,"  said  I,  humbled  again,  "what 
is  wrong  with  the  ethics  ?  Instance  me,  good 
shepherd." 

"  In  the  first  place,"  she  was  good  enough 
to  explain,  "  I  don't  like  this  handing  a  girl 
around  as  if  she  were  a  transferable  piece  of 
property.  It  is  wrong,  and  what  is  worse,  it 
is  sentimental.  Because,  of  course,  the  one 
whom,  in  a  fair  field,  she  loves  is  the  one  who 
has  a  right  to  her,  and  how  can  he  give  her  up 
without  sacrificing  her,  too  ?  " 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  the  fact  that  she  is  his  bride 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that  she  loves  him 
best." 


248  Psychology  and  Ethics 

"  Does  n't  it !  "  interjected  she. 

"  At  least  we  may  suppose  that  in  the  case 
given  the  woman's  affection  or  fancy  —  for  it 
may  as  yet  be  only  that — is  evenly  balanced 
between  the  two." 

"  Then,"  said  she,  "  let  his  own  love  for  her 
decide  him.  That  he  knows.  He  cannot  know 
that  the  other  loves  her  so  well." 

"  But,"  still  objected  I,  "  suppose  he  is  a 
very  common-sense,  hard-headed  person,  and 
his  view  of  love  is  that,  as  a  mere  sentiment,  it 
amounts  to  nothing ;  that  the  important  ques 
tion  is,  Whose  love  is  likely  to  surround  her 
with  the  most  comfortable  existence,  the  best 
opportunities,  —  in  short,  the  greatest  happi 
ness  ?  And  suppose  he  is  perfectly  aware  that 
he  himself  is  the  old,  sad,  and  every  way  unde 
sirable  Doe,  while  the  rival  is  the  young,  chip 
per,  and  every  way  desirable  Roe." 

"  You  talk,"  said  she,  "  as  if  the  man  himself 
had  no  rights,  no  claims  to  happiness  on  his 
own  account." 

"Oh,  but,"  said  I,  "must  he  not  recognize 
as  well  the  other's  rights  and  claims,  and  *  love 
his  neighbor  as  himself  '  ?  " 

"  But,"  she  insisted,  "  not  better  than  him 
self." 

"  Would  you  have  him,  then,  make  a  cool 
calculation  —  on  a  plank  at  sea!  —  of  the  ex- 


The  Ethics  of  the  Plank  at  Sea     249 

act  relative  values  of  himself  and  the  other 
man,  and  adjudge  the  bride  and  the  life  to  the 
most  worthy  ? " 

"  I  know,"  she  replied,  "  that  in  all  the  small 
matters  of  daily  intercourse  it  is  the  sweeter 
and  more  dignified  course  to  give  up,  regard 
less  of  all  question  of  who  has  the  right,  or 
which  is  the  more  worthy.  But  when  it  comes 
to  the  uttermost,  when  one's  hold  on  life  or  on 
the  thing  that  alone  could  make  life  valuable  is 
at  stake,  why  should  not  a  rational  mind  look 
down  upon  the  whole  matter  as  might  an  un 
biased  inhabitant  of  Mars,  and  give  the  prize 
to  him  who  has  the  most  desert  ? " 

"  But,"  said  I,  "  could  even  the  most  rational 
mind  ever  hope  to  be  an  unbiased  judge  of  the 
relative  claims  of  another  and  himself  ?  And 
besides,  supposing  the  two  men  are  justly  esti 
mated  as  precisely  equal  in  value,  the  world 
would  still  be  the  gainer  for  the  first  posses 
sor's  giving  up  the  plank.  In  either  case,  it 
would  have  had  a  living  man  ;  but  now  it  has 
the  man  plus  the  act  of  self-sacrifice.  To  save 
the  other  man  instead  of  himself  is  not  merely 
substituting  x  for  x ;  it  substitutes  x  +  y.  For 
my  part,  I  must  still  hold  to  the  ethics  of 

x  +  y." 

She  let  me  have  the  last  word,  and  there  we 
left  it. 


THE   MIND   AS   A   BAD   PORTRAIT 
PAINTER 

MOST  people  seem  to  experience  an  odd 
difficulty  in  realizing  that  the  very  greatest  per 
sonages  of  the  past  ever  were  young.  Yet  this 
conception  is  necessary,  if  we  wish  to  see  them 
as  they  really  were,  and  not  according  to  the 
text-books  and  other  sources  of  illusory  tradi 
tion.  Milton,  for  instance  :  who  does  not  think 
of  him  habitually  as  the  "  blind  old  bard  "  ? 
To  test  this,  let  any  one  arrange  to  have  the 
name  brought  suddenly  before  the  attention  at 
an  odd  moment,  and  see  what  kind  of  image 
presents  itself  to  the  imagination  in  response 
to  the  word.  Ten  to  one.it  will  prove  to  be  a 
venerable  but  sightless  and  piteous  figure  ;  a 
confused  mixture  of  several  superimposed 
images,  of  which  the  most  prominent  may  be 
some  dolorous  frontispiece  engraving  of  a 
stoop-shouldered  bust,  or  the  blind,  pathetic 
form  in  Munkacsy's  vivid  group.  It  needs 
but  an  instant's  reflection  to  see  that  this  is  a 
very  inadequate  and  unfortunate  conception  of 
the  actual  Milton  in  his  best  davs.  True,  he 


The  Mind  as  a  Bad  Portrait  Painter    251 

was  both  old  and  blind  when  the  two  Paradises 
were  committed  to  paper,  but  not  when  they 
were  first  conceived  in  his  creative  brain.  And 
what  of  that  long  period  of  his  middle  man 
hood,  when  he  was  not  only  poet,  but  states 
man  and  diplomate  and  terrible  fighter  for  free 
thought  and  free  government,  —  an  erect,  ac 
tive  figure,  as  full  of  force  and  fire  as  any 
trooper  of  them  all  ?  What  of  the  still  earlier 
days,  when  the  beautiful  young  fellow  charmed 
the  hearts  of  man  and  maid,  "cunning  at 
fence,"  of  the  literal  sort,  as  well  as" in  all  the 
elegant  intricacies  of  Italian  sonneteering  and 
polished  statecraft  ?  For  my  part,  I  like  best 
to  remember  the  outward  aspect  of  Milton  as 
he  appears  in  Vertue's  engraving  from  the 
Onslow  portrait  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  —  a 
jocund  youngster,  with  laughing  dark  gray  eyes 
and  fresh,  manly  face ;  full  of  the  sap  so  soon 
to  mature  into  the  tough  oak  that  helped  —  he 
more  than  almost  any  man,  if  we  consider  his 
having  been  both  brain  and  pen  to  Cromwell, 
besides  his  own  incessant  prose  polemics  on 
the  side  of  freedom  —  to  wrestle  out  our  mod 
ern  liberties  in  that  fierce  tug  of  the  Great 
Revolution.  It  was  at  just  the  time  of  this 
lovely  boy  portrait  that  he  was  writing  to  his 
college  mate  :  — 

"  Festivity  and  poetry  are  not  incompatible. 


252  Psychology  and  Ethics 

Why  should  it  be  different  with  you  ?  But, 
indeed,  one  sees  the  triple  influence  of  Bac 
chus,  Apollo,  and  Ceres  in  the  verses  you  have 
sent  me.  And  then,  have  you  not  music,  — 
the  harp  lightly  touched  by  nimble  hands,  and 
the  lute  giving  time  to  the  fair  ones  as  they 
dance  in  the  old  tapestried  room  ?  Believe  me, 
where  the  ivory  keys  leap  and  the  accompany 
ing  dance  goes  round  the  perfumed  hall,  there 
will  the  song-god  be." 

The  teachers  of  literature  might  well  make 
some  effort  to  rehabilitate  these  misimagined 
worthies  of  the  past,  to  remove  from  them  the 
disguises  of  age  and  senility  that  a  too  rever 
ent  tradition  has  thrown  about  them,  and  to 
present  them  in  that  bloom  of  manhood  be 
longing  to  the  period  of  their  greatest  activity. 
If  I  were  a  Professor  of  Literature,  I  should 
desire  to  hang  my  lecture-room  with  pictures, 
—  not  of  the  old  traditional  and  forbidding 
decrepitudes,  but  of  Milton,  for  example,  as 
the  charming  young  swordsman,  with  velvet 
cloak  tossed  on  the  ground  and  rapier  in  hand  ; 
of  Homer,  no  longer  blind  and  prematurely 
agonized,  as  it  were,  with  our  modern  perplex 
ities  in  finding  him  a  birthplace,  but  as  the 
splendid  young  Greek  athlete,  limbed  and 
weaponed  like  his  own  youthful  vision  of 
Apollo,  as 


The  Mind  as  a  Bad  Portrait  Painter    253 

"  Down  he  came, 

Down  from  the  summit  of  the  Olympian  mount, 
Wrathful  in  heart ;  his  shoulders  bore  the  bow 
And  hollow  quiver ;  there  the  arrows  rang 
Upon  the  shoulders  of  the  angry  god, 
As  on  he  moved.     He  came  as  comes  the  night, 
And,  seated  from  the  ships  aloof,  sent  forth 
An  arrow  ;  terrible  was  heard  the  clang 
Of  that  resplendent  bow." 

I  would  tamper  with  even  such  venerated  tra 
ditional  dignities  as  Mrs.  Barbauld,  for  the  sake 
of  their  own  rehabilitation  in  the  eyes  of  mis 
guided  youth.  She  should  no  longer  frown 
formidable  behind  the  stately  praenomen  of 
"  Letitia ;  "  she  should  be  given  back  her  true 
girl-name  of  "  Nancy,"  and  be  represented,  after 
her  own  account,  as  lithely  and  blithely  climb 
ing  an  apple-tree.  Pythagoras'  should  be  a 
gracious  stripling,  crowned  with  ivy  buds  and 
stretched  at  a  pretty  goat-girl's  feet,  touching 
delicately  the  seven-stringed  lyre.  Even  Moses 
might  be  shown  as  a  buxom  and  frolicsome 
boy,  shying  stones  at  the  crocodiles.  Only 
Shakespeare,  of  all  the  pantheon,  would  need 
no  change.  His  eternal  youthfulness  has  been 
too  much  for  the  text-books  and  the  monument- 
makers,  and  we  always  seem  to  conceive  him 
as  the  fresh-hearted  and  full-forced  man  he 
really  was. 


THE   FELT   LOCATION   OF  THE  "I" 

I  SUPPOSE  everybody  has  tried,  first  or  last, 
to  make  out  just  where  he  feels  himself  to  be 
situated  in  himself.  When  the  finger  is  pinched, 
it  is  plainly  enough  not  /,that  am  pinched,  but 
my  finger ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  a  hurt  in 
any  part  of  the  body.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  great  controlling  nerve-centres 
are  in  the  brain,  I  have  never  been  able  to  dis 
cover  that  a  headache  felt  any  nearer  me  than 
a  finger-ache.  Perhaps  the  nearest  approach 
I  have  known  to  a  sense  of  closeness,  or  to  a 
veritable  w^-ache,  has  been  a  sharp  pain  in  the 
stomach,  especially  when,  on  one  occasion,  I 
was  struck  in  that  region  by  a  baseball  bat, 
which  slipped  from  the  hand  of  the  striker. 

But  there  is  one  point  concerning  our  felt 
location  which  I  think  we  all  are  sure  of.  It 
is  the  one  brought  out  so  deliciously  by  the 
dear  little  girl  in  "  Punch."  "  You  ought  to 
tie  your  own  apron-strings,  Mabel !  "  says  one 
of  those  irresistible  young  women  of  Du  Mau- 
rier's.  "  How  can  I,  aunty  ? "  is  the  reply. 
"  I  'm  in  front,  you  know  !  " 


Tbe  Felt  Location  of  the  "I"       255 

This  is  a  shrewd  observation  in  minute  psy 
chology.  The  spinal  chord  runs  along  the 
back,  with  all  its  ganglia ;  the  weight  of  the 
brain  is  well  behind  ;  yet  we  are  not  there.  In 
other  words,  the  curious  thing  is  that  we  feel 
ourselves  to  be,  not  in  the  region  where  im 
pressions  are  received  and  answered  in  the 
brain  and  spinal  cord,  but  where  they  first  meet 
the  nerve-extremities.  We  seem  to  inhabit  not 
the  citadel,  but  the  outer  walls.  At  the  point 
of  peripheral  expansion  of  the  nerves  of  sense, 
where  the  outer  forces  begin  to  be  apprehended 
by  us  as  inner,  —  "  in  front,"  where  the  fingers 
feel,  and  the  nose  smells,  and  the  eyes  see,  — 
there,  if  anywhere,  we  find  ourselves  to  be. 

I  have  often  been  interested  to  notice  where 
abouts  on  our  bodily  surface  another  animal 
looks  to  find  us.  The  man,  or  even  the  little 
child,  looks  at  the  face.  Is  it  because  the  voice 
issues  thence  ?  Yet  it  is  the  eyes,  rather  than 
the  mouth,  that  is  watched.  Is  it  because  the 
expression,  the  signal  station  for  the  changing 
moods,  is  there  more  than  elsewhere  ?  A  dog, 
also,  invariably  looks  up  into  the  face.  So  does 
a  bird,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  food 
comes  from  the  hand.  Why  does  he  not  con 
sider  the  "  I,"  so  far  as  his  needs  are  con 
cerned,  to  lie  in  the  part  that  feeds  him  ?  But 
no ;  he  cocks  his  head  to  one  side,  and  directs 


256  Psychology  and  Ethics 

his  lustrous  little  eye  straight  to  our  own,  in 
order  to  establish  what  communion  he  can  with 
the  very  him  of  his  master  and  friend. 

It  is  hardly  less  pathetic  than  our  own  hu 
man  efforts  to  pierce,  by  the  searching  pene 
tration  of  the  eyes,  to  the  real  personality  of 
each  other.  We  never  succeed.  We  utter  our 
imperfect  articulate  sounds  to  each  other's 
ears,  but  we  do  not  look  thither.  It  is  still  at 
the  appealing  and  dumbly  yearning  eyes  that 
we  gaze,  and  go  away  baffled  and  sorrowful  at 
last. 


WHAT  IS  THE  OLDEST  THING  IN 
THE   WORLD? 

THE  human  mind  is  pretty  hard  to  suit.  It 
gets  tired  of  old  things,  but  when  everything 
in  the  environment  seems  brand-new  it  expe 
riences  a  still  more  profound  dissatisfaction. 
Then  an  inveterate  craving  for  something  an 
cient  asserts  itself.  Thus  we  are  as  "  difficult " 
as  the  boarding-house  boy  of  whom  my  bach 
elor  friend  tells  me  :  when  they  help  him  to 
syrup  on  his  buckwheat  cake,  and  ask  with 
fond  solicitude,  "  Do  you  want  it  drizzle-drozzle 
or  crinkle-crankle  ? "  he  responds  only  with  a 
vague  scowl ;  and  when  the  honeyed  stream 
descends  in  the  latter  form  he  whines,  "  You 
knew  I  wanted  it  drizzle-drozzle  !  " 

When  the  hunger  for  something  good  and 
old  is  strong  upon  us,  we  Americans  are  driven 
to  cross  the  ocean  in  search  of  it.  But  even 
in  the  old  countries  it  is  not  everything  that 
can  satisfy  us.  A  comrade  of  mine,  who  has 
been  roaming  up  and  down  Europe,  writes  me 
that  "  Niirnberg  is  the  only  city  that  really 
keeps  its  promise  of  seeming  old."  When  we 


258  Psychology  and  Ethics 

cannot  conveniently  travel  for  it,  this  periodi 
cal  want  of  the  flavor  of  antiquity  sends  us 
to  the  Old  Curiosity  Shops.  We  accumulate 
old  truck  of  various  sorts.  Worm-eaten  furni 
ture  may  for  the  moment  soothe  our  madness. 
Moss-grown  and  tumble-down  houses  become 
captivating  to  our  fancy.  We  are  even  patient 
of  old  jokes.  We  seek  the  society  of  the  elders, 
and  hear  with  constantly  renewed  pleasure  their 
castanean  anecdotes.  We  refuse  to  read  any 
book  that  has  a  clean  new  cover.  The  gleam 
of  fresh  paint  vexes  our  eyes,  as  we  walk  along 
the  rows  of  spick-span  houses.  Even  our  let 
ter-paper  must  have  torn  and  ragged  edges,  as 
if  we  had  found  it  in  our  great-grandmother's 
portfolio,  in  a  chest  in  the  garret. 

This  hankering  is  itself  an  old  trait.  Infal 
lible  Bartlett,  in  that  volume  of  inexhaustible 
interest  to  those  who  like  to  turn  over  the  quin 
tessential  distillations  of  the  wit  and  wisdom 
of  all  times,  —  the  "Familiar  Quotations,"  — 
gives  quaint  illustrations  of  it  under  the  head 
of  "  Old  wood  to  burn,  old  wine  to  drink,  old 
friends  to  trust !  "  It  was  this  same  mood  that 
made  Dan  Chaucer  assert  (as  everybody  re 
members,  but  as  nobody  resents  hearing  over 
again,  —  it  is,  would  say  our  friend  the  Judge, 
"so  deliciously  wrong "),  — 


Tbe  Oldest  Thing  in  the  World     259 

"  For  out  of  the  old  fieldes,  as  men  saithe, 
Cometh  al  this  new  corne  fro  yere  to  yere, 
And  out  of  olde  bookes,  in  good  faithe, 
Cometh  al  this  new  science  that  men  lere." 

Yet,  in  the  form  in  which  we  feel  it  in  this 
country,  this  hunger  for  the  old  is  one  of  the 
six  or  seven  thousand  traits  which  our  British 
cousins  find  it  difficult  to  comprehend.  We 
cross  the  sea  to  find  a  cathedral  that  is  truly 
ancient,  and  they  point  us  with  pride  to  this 
summer's  restorations ;  but  while  the  group 
stands  admiring  them,  the  American  slides 
away  quietly,  and  "  slips  behind  a  tomb,"  or  is 
found  rapt  on  some  dear  unrestored  nook  of 
the  ivied  cloister.  Just  so  it  is  on  the  Conti 
nent  :  Paris  is  always  too  wonderfully  new  and 
shining,  as  if  Orpheus  had  strummed  it  up  only 
this  very  morning  from  entirely  new  materials. 
My  favorite  spot  is  in  the  Louvre,  between  the 
five-footed  bull  of  Assyria  and  the  rose-colored 
granite  sarcophagus  of  Rameses  III.  The 
Hague  is  delightfully  swept-up  and  washed- 
down  and  immaculately  fresh  and  resplendent ; 
but  my  best  moment  there  was  when,  in  the 
museum,  I  took  in  my  hand  a  gold  coin  of 
Alexander,  and  as  it  lay  cool  and  smooth  in 
my  palm  I  thought  it  was  probably  one  that 
the  conqueror  himself  flung  ringing  against  the 


260  Psychology  and  Ethics 

tub-staves  of  Diogenes,   the  day  that  worthy 
growled  at  him  to  "get  out  of  his  sunshine." 

Sometimes  the  question  has  presented  itself, 
What  is  the  very  oldest  thing  in  the  world  that 
was  seen  by  the  men  of  yore  and  is  still  visible 
to  us  ?  What  is  the  object,  or  line,  or  point, 
which  we  can  now  behold,  that  was  gazed  on 
by  human  eyes  farthest  back  in  antiquity  ?  It 
is  certainly  not  to  be  looked  for  in  this  coun 
try.  We  are  ridiculously  new.  It  was  only  the 
other  day  that  Columbus  discovered  us,  and  it 
was  but  a  little  while  previous  that,  as  red  In 
dians,  we  had  appeared  on  the  scene ;  not  long 
enough,  obviously,  to  have  thinned  out  the  deer 
and  partridges.  As  mound-builders,  we  had 
only  a  short  time  before  thrown  up  our  queer 
constructions  for  the  puzzling  of  the  antiqua 
ries.  The  very  soil  here  under  me,  as  I  write, 
is  painfully  recent.  It  was  but  a  few  thousand 
years  ago  that  some  sportive  glacier  came  ca 
pering  down  from  the  Pole,  and  plastered  it. 
in  the  shape  of  rock-meal,  over  our  bare  sand 
stones.  Over  in  the  Sierra  Nevadas,  it  is  true, 
I  lay  one  sunshiny  afternoon  along  a  gleaming 
slope  of  the  primeval  granite,  and  cooled  my 
cheek  against  its  ice-planed  polish,  and  admit 
ted  that  here  at  last  was  something  pretty  old. 
Yet  "  rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun  "  as 
was  this  gigantic  adamantine  couch,  there  was 


The  Oldest  Thing  in  the  World     261 

a  still  older  thing  playing  at  that  very  moment 
about  us.  It  was  the  mountain  wind.  I  could 
put  out  my  hand  to  it,  and  reflect  that  it  might 
have  been  this  very  identical  breath  of  air  that 
bubbled  up  through  the  sea  when  the  towers  of 
Atlantis  went  down  ;  or  it  may  have  flickered 
the  flame  on  Abel's  altar.  "You  need  not,"  I 
might  have  said  to  it,  "  think  to  palm  yourself 
off  as  a  freakish  young  zephyr,  just  born  of 
yonder  snow-streak  and  the  sun-warmed  rock ; 
you  have  been  roaming  this  planet  ever  since 
its  birth.  You  have  whirled  in  cyclones,  and 
danced  with  the  streamers  of  the  aurora  ;  it 
was  you  that  breathed  Job's  curses,  and  the 
love-vows  of  the  first  lover  that  was  ever  for 
sworn." 

But  there  is  still  an  older  thing  to  link  us 
with  the  earliest  of  our  race :  it  is  the  nightly 
procession  of  the  stars.  How  old  are  the 
names  of  these  familiar  constellations  ?  Ptol 
emy  gives  a  list  of  forty-eight  of  them ;  and 
some  were  certainly  known  to  Homer  and  to 
the  eldest  of  the  Hebrew  writers.  Is  it  an 
utterly  wild  speculation  that  they  may  be  so 
ancient  as  to  have  once  fairly  represented  the 
outlines  of  the  bears  and  lions,  archers  and 
hunters,  whose  names  they  carry  ?  The  stars, 
we  know,  are  forever  shifting  their  relative  po 
sitions,  if  only  a  few  hair's-breadths  every  thou- 


262  Psychology  and  Ethics 

sand  years.  Now  the  Scorpion  is  still  a  fairly 
suggestive  scorpion,  and  Draco  a  tolerable 
dragon,  winding  his  scaly  length  about  the  Lit 
tle  Bear.  May  it  not  be  that  Ursa  Major  took 
his  name  so  many  aeons  ago  that  he  was  then 
a  veritable  ursine  figure,  instead  of  the  later 
Wain  and  the  Great  Dipper  of  our  own  day  ? 
Let  not  the  severe  scientist  frown  at  this  fancy 
of  a  mere  literary  man.  Let  him  keep  his  tem 
per,  remembering  the  dictum  of  that  other  and 
more  solemn  literary  man  who  averred  that 
only  "  the  undevout  astronomer  gets  mad,"  or 
words  more  or  less  to  that  effect. 

At  least  we  may  have  the  satisfaction  of  feel 
ing,  when  we  look  up  at  the  stars,  that  our  eyes 
are  fastened  on  the  very  oldest  things  we  know 
of  in  the  world.  We  can  be  sure  that  human 
eyes  traced  out,  night  after  night,  those  very 
lines,  —  squares,  triangles,  rings,  the  arrow  of 
the  Archer,  the  wings  of  the  Swan,  the  scales 
of  the  Balance,  the  "bands  of  Orion,"  —  longer 
ago  than  in  the  case  of  any  shapes  and  forms 
that  our  eyes  can  now  behold ;  unless  it  be  the 
wrinkled  visage  of  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  or 
the  fiery  circle  of  the  sun  itself. 


THE    FREE   WILL    OF   THE   BONFIRE 

As  we  pass  away  from  the  period  of  child 
hood,  most  of  its  wonderful  sights  lose  their 
fascination.  To  experienced  and  disillusioned 
middle  age  it  almost  seems  that  nothing  is  any 
longer  wonderful,  except  perhaps  the  fact  that 
nothing  is  any  longer  wonderful.  But  for  my 
own  part,  as  I  go  on  in  life,  I  find  that  two  or 
three  of  the  child's  great  spectacles  still  keep 
for  me  their  freshness.  One  of  these  is  the 
elephant  leading  the  circus  procession  through 
the  village  street.  I  never  could  see  it  enough, 
that  huge,  unearthly  shape,  moving  solemnly 
along ;  flapping  its  wings  of  ears  not  for  com 
mon  and  mundane  fly-guards,  but  in  so.me  mys 
terious  gesture  or  ceremonial ;  bending  its 
architectural  legs  in  the  wrong  place  ;  waving 
its  trunk  in  incantation;  seeing  none  of  the 
trivial  street  matters  to  right  or  left,  but  ab 
sorbed  in  Oriental  dreams.  I  used  to  think 
it  strange  that  people  who  were  rich  enough 
should  not  have  one  always  pacing  about  their 
own  back  yards. 

Another  of   these   spectacles   of  childhood 


264  Psychology  and  Ethics 

that  keeps  its  charm  for  me  is  the  locomotive 
at  full  speed.  Momentum  is  but  a  word  in  a 
book,  except  when  I  stand  as  near  as  I  dare  to 
the  clattering  rails,  and  take  the  fearful  joy  of 
seeing,  hearing,  feeling,  touching,  so  to  speak, 
with  the  trembling  antennae  of  my  mind,  the 
thunderous  rush  of  the  iron  mass  as  it  reaches 
me,  and  is  gone.  A  different  and  calmer  plea 
sure  is  to  watch  the  train  from  a  half  mile's 
distance  across  the  fields,  —  how  slick  is  its 
slipping  along,  "  without  haste,  without  rest," 
as  if  independently  of  any  propelling  force  ;  for 
it  is  the  train  that  appears  to  run  the  driving- 
wheels,  not  the  driving-wheels  the  train.  It  is 
not  momentum  now,  but  the  inertia  of  motion ; 
not  a  missile  or  projectile,  hurled  from  behind 
or  drawn  from  before,  but  a  thing  whose  state 
of  speed  is  as  natural  and  immutable  as  to 
other  things  the  state  of  rest.  Only  I  never 
can  make  the  forward  motion  of  the  engine 
itself  appear  steady  and  uniform.  To  my  eye 
there  is  some  optical  illusion  by  which  the 
rushing  and  whizzing  creature  seems  inces 
santly  to  hang  for  the  smallest  fraction  of  a 
second,  then  leap  forward,  then  hang  again ; 
and  so,  by  alternate  infinitesimal  checks  and 
boundings  ahead,  to  fly  on  its  swift  way. 

But  the  sight  in  which  I  still  take  the  most 
childlike  delight   is  the  spring  bonfire.     Just 


The  Free  Will  of  the  Bonfire       265 

about  the  time  that  the  cherry-trees  are  snow 
ing  out  into  full  bloom;  and  the  bluebirds, 
loveliest  of  feathered  things,  are  talking  about 
nesting-boxes  in  gentle,  irresolute  voices,  soft 
as  their  breasts  and  their  flight ;  and  the  first 
round  clouds  are  rolling  across  a  deeper  azure 
than  has  yet  appeared ;  and  some  merry  maid, 
herself  freshly  blossomed  out  in  a  sprigged 
spring  gown,  comes  in  triumphant  with  the 
first  arbutus,  then  the  sound  of  the  rake  is 
heard  in  the  land.  The  offending  sticks  and 
straws  of  last  year's  garden  life  are  gathered 
together  into  dry  and  light-tossed  piles.  Now 
the  eager  child  is  permitted,  if  he  is  good,  the 
untold  felicity  of  setting  off  the  bonfire.  There 

is 

"  The  quick,  sharp  scratch 
And  blue  spurt  of  a  lighted  match," 

the  instant's  breathless  suspense  while  the  first 
pungency  of  the  vaporous  odor  steals  out,  the 
sere  sticks  keeping  at  least  some  fragrant  mem 
ory  of  the  past  summer  within  them,  and  giv 
ing  up  this  last  ghost  in  reluctant  and  wavering 
smoke.  It  is  fairly  lighted,  and  now  in  a  mo 
ment  blows  in  freshly  the  favoring  gale  that 
all  flames  and  other  aspiring  spirits  call  to 
themselves  out  of  whatever  depth  of  stagnation 
around  them,  and  "  up  leaps  and  out  springs  " 
the  crimson,  the  orange,  the  scarlet,  the  vivWly 


266  Psychology  and  Ethics 

flame-colored  flame.  Always  out  of  soft  sheaths 
of  brown  smoke  the  blades  of  fire  dart  upward, 
in  curves,  and  bounding  whirls  and  spirals,  and 
sudden  sidelong  sword-thrusts.  Would  it  not 
all  seem  the  very  quintessence  of  voluntary, 
self-impelled  aspiration  upward  and  away  from 
earth?  In  sober  scientific  verity,  however, 
what  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  that  swift  and 
buoyant  skyward  impulse?  It  is  no  life  within  ; 
it  is  all  force  from  without.  Atmospheric  pres 
sure  is  the  plain  prose  of  it.  It  is  a  pretty 
illusion,  but  there  is  really  no  heavenward 
striving  in  the  flame.  It  leaps  and  bounds 
upward  in  beautiful  freedom,  but  it  is  only  — 
oh,  the  inexorable  fact  !  —  that  the  weight  of 
the  heavier  air  around  it  squeezes  the  flame  out 
of  its  way  in  helpless  obedience  to  gravity. 
And  so  an  uneasy  question  creeps  into  the 
mind,  namely,  this  :  If  these  leaping  crests  of 
the  flame,  these  upflung  wings,  so  eager  and 
mad  to  rise  that  flame  shreds  away  from  flame 
in  the  upward  rush,  leaving  detached  waves  of 
fire  hanging  free  of  the  crimson  column,  and 
flickering  an  instant  by  themselves,  —  if  this  is 
all  but  the  illusory  aspect  of  inert  matter  under 
the  pressure  of  outside  circumstance,  what  may 
we  think  of  our  own  semblance  of  free  will  and 
aspiration  ?  As  we  look  from  the  flame  to  the 
man,  must  we  say,  "  So  he  "  ?  Is  each  appar- 


The  Free  Will  of  the  Bonfire       267 

ently  spontaneous  out-thrust  of  free  impulse 
nothing  but  a  blind  result  of  the  composition 
of  forces  surrounding  us  in  the  world  ? 

If  this  would  seem  a  dolorous  doubt,  it  has, 
on  second  thought,  another  and  more  comfort 
able  side.  If  wills  were  perfectly  free  of  out 
side  influence,  what  a  jostle  and  shock  of 
chaotic  impulses  !  It  would  be  like  a  starry 
universe  in  which  gravity  had  fallen  asleep,  all 
the  planets  gone  mad  and  become  comets,  and 
every  comet  an  egoistic  and  resistless  force 
bent  on  universal  destruction.  It  is  curious  to 
consider  that,  unless  the  human  will  were  con 
trolled  by  outside  forces,  —  influenced,  at  least, 
and  is  not  every  influence  to  that  extent  a  con 
trol  ?  —  it  would  be  impossible  to  sway  any 
friend  for  good,  impossible  to  be  swayed  by  any 
friend  for  good,  since  the  influencing  will  is 
but  an  outside  force  to  any  other  will.  What 
would  become  of  education,  training,  all  loving 
ministrations  of  gentle  control,  if  every  child's 
own  choice  and  every  evil  passion's  propulsion 
were  a  supreme  free  force,  a  blind  flame,  leap 
ing  hither  and  thither  at  its  own  impulse  ? 
Free  will  ?  —  it  seems  our  most  priceless  pos 
session.  Fate?  —  it  seems  our  deadliest  foe. 
But  when  we  go  to  another  human  soul,  with 
some  confidence  that  we  may  win  it  to  forego 
an  evil  opportunity,  and  to  take  the  better  and 


268  Psychology  and  Ethics 

wiser  path,  it  is  because  we  rely  on  being  able 
to  step,  ourselves,  into  the  chain  of  controlling 
forces  surrounding  that  other  will,  and  so  to 
become  its  fate,  or  some  small  segment  of  its 
fate,  as  against  its  own  free  will.  I  feel  that  I 
am  free,  and  I  delight  to  feel  it ;  but  I  know  that 
there  is  at  this  moment  approaching  me,  un 
seen,  on  the  train,  or  across  the  ocean,  or  down 
the  street,  a  friend  whose  will,  an  outside  force 
to  me,  shall  bend  me  this  way  or  that  by  a 
word.  And  at  this  fact,  too,  how  can  I  but 
rejoice?  —  although  I  recognize  plainly  enough 
that  the  more  I  am  loved  by  any  spirit  wiser 
and  stronger  than  my  own,  the  less  I  shall  be 
free.  That  as  yet  unspoken  word,  I  know,  is 
but  one  among  ten  million  converging  forces, 
in  the  centre  of  which  my  will  vibrates  and 
quivers  in  delicate  response  to  each  electric 
thrill  of  influence.  If  it  were  not  so,  again, 
how  could  one  take  measures  against  the  ques 
tionable  possibilities  of  his  own  future  self  ?  If 
my  will,  at  a  given  hour  of  next  year  or  ten 
years  hence,  is  to  be  a  free  and  uncontrollable 
impulse,  what  use  for  me  to  legislate  for  it 
to-day  ? 

And  there  is  one  other  and  final  consolation 
in  that  bugbear  of  a  thought  that  the  leaping 
flame  is  but  the  slave  of  the  crowding  air  :  it  is 
from  the  reflection  that,  whether  it  be  safe  or 


The  Free  Will  of  the  Bonfire      269 

not  for  universal  exoteric  doctrine,  "  the  evil 
that  we  do  "  not  only  "  lives  after  us  ;  "  it  lived 
before  us.  The  seeds  of  it  were  sown  within 
us  from  without,  like  the  meteoric  dust  that 
may  have  brought  the  germs  of  foul  weeds 
upon  a  virgin  planet.  Evil  deeds,  evil  thoughts, 
they  are  all  of  the  nature  of  an  influenza,  —  an 
influence,  or  a  convergence  of  a  multitude  of 
such.  For  the  moment,  if  only  for  the  mo 
ment,  we  break  away  from  the  sane  sense  of 
personal  responsibility,  and,  turning  on  the 
ghost  of  our  bad  deed,  we  cry,  "Thou  canst 
not  say  /  did  it !  "  And  yet  — 


THE  INVISIBLE  PART  OF  THIS  WORLD 
WE  LIVE  IN :  A  TALK  TO  SCHOOL 
CHILDREN 

I  WANT  to  talk 'to  you  a  few  minutes  this 
afternoon  about  the  invisible  part  of  this  world 
we  are  living  in.  I  did  not  say  that  I  meant 
to  talk  about  the  invisible  world,  for  by  that 
you  would  have  thought  I  was  going  to  speak 
of  some  far-off,  unintelligible  matters,  wholly 
distinct  from  the  world  around  us  with  which 
we  are  familiar.  But  what  I  want  to  remind 
you  of  is  this :  that  there  is  a  great  portion  of 
this  wonderful  world  of  ours  which  we  scarcely 
ever  think  about,  because  it  is  invisible,  and 
yet  which  is  just  as  real  and  just  as  near  to  all 
of  us  as  these  desks  and  books  and  clothes. 
There  are  forces  and  motions  here  which  would 
be  astounding  and  frightful,  if  we  could  fairly 
realize  them,  without  at  the  same  time  appre 
ciating  the  supreme  order  by  which  they  are  all 
controlled. 

To  begin  with,  here  are  a  great  many  cubic 
feet  of  oxygen  and  nitrogen,  mixed  together 
into  a  transparent  fluid  which  we  call  air,  across 


The  Invisible  Part  of  tUs  World    271 

whose  invisible  waves  the  sounds  you  are  lis 
tening  to  are  being  carried  to  your  ears  like 
ripples;  a  fluid  so  delicate  and  fine  that  it  is 
penetrating  our  lungs,  each  breath  passing  over 
to  the  blood  its  little  burden  of  life-giving  oxy 
gen,  yet  so  vast  in  extent,  reaching  up  as  it 
does  above  the  clouds,  that  its  weight  in  this 
room  is  equal  to  many  tons.  Suppose  one  of 
you  were  lying  on  the  floor  yonder  with  a  huge 
rock  weighing  two  thousand  pounds  crushing 
him  down  ;  we  should  all  be  horrified.  Yet 
this  invisible  air  is  pressing  every  one  of  our 
bodies  with  a  force  of  more  than  two  thousand 
pounds.  Why  is  it,  then,  that  we  are  riot 
crushed  ?  It  is  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
fish  is  able  to  sink  with  safety  to  a  depth  in 
the  sea  where  it  sustains  a  mass  of  water  above 
it  of  many  tons'  weight.  The  body  of  the  fish 
is  covered  with  minute  pores,  little  threadlike 
openings,  which  admit  the  water  to  the  inside 
of  every  part,  and  so  the  pressure  from  within 
balances  that  from  without.  Just  as  if  I  take 
a  pane  of  glass  in  the  window  and  press  hard 
against  it  with  my  hand,  —  of  course  it  will 
give  way  and  be  broken.  But  if  I  reach  my 
arm  out  of  the  window  and  press  at  the  same 
time  with  the  other  hand  equally  hard  against 
the  outside  of  the  pane,  the  pressure  will  be 
exactly  balanced  and  the  glass  will  remain  un- 


272  Psychology  and  Ethics 

broken.  In  the  same  way,  the  pores  and  cav 
ities  of  our  bodies  allow  the  air  to  penetrate, 
every  part,  and  the  pressure  is  just  as  great 
from  within  as  from  outside,  and  we  are  there 
fore  wholly  unconscious  of  it.  So  that  we  walk 
about,  balancing  upon  our  heads,  as  it  were, 
this  vast  burden  of  thousands  of  pounds,  with 
out  ever  thinking  of  its  existence. 

Again,  consider  the  force  which  the  earth  is 
exerting  to  bind  everything  fast  to  its  surface. 
Suppose  we  should  fix  an  iron  ring  into  the 
wall  yonder,  and,  getting  a  firm  hold  of  it, 
should  attempt  to  lift  the  wall,  with  the  roof, 
a  foot  or  an  inch.  You  know,  of  course,  what 
would  prevent  our  budging  it  a  hair's  breadth, 
—  simply  the  attraction  of  gravitation  ;  words 
easily  spoken,  but  how  rarely  appreciated ! 
Here  is  something  going  on  between  the  wall 
and  the  earth  which  defies  our  strength  to  have 
the  least  effect  on  it.  We  can  see  nothing 
there  except  the  lifeless,  motionless  wood  and 
stone  resting  on  the  equally  lifeless  ground. 
We  may  peep  under  the  foundations,  but  we 
can  find  nothing  gluing  the  stone  and  the 
ground  together.  Yet  there  is  this  enormous 
attraction,  reaching  up  like  a  gigantic  hand 
from  the  earth's  centre,  holding  everything 
down  with  a  grip  of  iron.  What  we  call  the 
heaviest  things,  stone  and  lead  and  so  on,  are 


The  Invisible  Part  of  this  World    273 

only  the  things  which  this  unseen  hand  grips 
the  firmest.  Some  of  the  lightest  substances, 
feathers  for  instance,  seem  to  elude  its  grasp, 
but  it  is  only  because  the  air  buoys  them  up, 
as  a  stick  is  buoyed  up  on  the  water.  Exhaust 
the  air  from  a  glass  vessel  with  the  air  pump, 
and  the  feather  falls  like  lead. 

But  here  in  this  little  lump  of  glass  is  an 
other  startling  force,  all  the  time  at  work.  We 
can  see  as  we  hold  it  up  only  a  transparent 
mass ;  but  inside  here,  embracing  every  parti 
cle,  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  is  a 
power  at  work  which  would  defy  the  stoutest 
arms  in  the  room  to  overcome.  Suppose  you 
grasp  each  side  and  try  to  pull  it  in  two.  Why 
is  it  that  you  might  tug  with  might  and  main, 
and  yet  make  no  impression  on  it  whatever  ? 
You  answer,  of  course,  that  it  is  the  attraction 
of  cohesion,  —  another  very  easy  word  to  say, 
but  a  very  amazing  thing  if  we  could  only 
fairly  get  hold  of  it  with  our  minds.  Suppose 
we  take  a  small  bar  of  iron  as  big  as  your 
wrist,  and  having  fixed  one  end  firmly  to  the 
floor  or  the  ground,  let  a  horse  be  fastened  by 
a  chain  to  the  other  end,  and  undertake  to 
pull  the  bar  in  two.  When  you  saw  the  strong 
animal  plunging  and  straining  every  muscle  in 
vain,  it  would  impress  you  with  an  idea  of 
great  power.  But  there  in  the  little  bar  would 


274  Psychology  and  Ethics 

be  the  far  greater  power,  —  a  little  goblin,  as 
it  were,  sitting  inside  the  iron,  and  knotting  its 
particles  together  with  the  strength  of  twenty 
horses ;  a  little  sleepless,  motionless  goblin, 
sitting  there  wholly  invisible,  exerting  every 
instant  the  force  of  a  giant.  All  around  us,  in 
the  boards  of  the  floor,  in  the  wood  of  your 
desks,  in  the  bones  of  your  arms  and  fingers, 
we  find  this  strange  force,  griping  atom  to 
atom,  so  that  you  may  lay  your  hand  on  the 
commonest  lump  of  stone  or  iron,  and  think  it 
is  a  very  ordinary  object  you  are  touching, 
while  right  under  the  palm  of  your  hand  there 
is  at  work  a  concealed  power  sufficient  to  make 
an  earthquake,  if  it  were  only  so  applied. 

But  if  these  unseen  forces  are  wonderful, 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  motions  that  are  taking 
place  here  in  the  room  ?  You  all  seem  to  be  sit 
ting  here  in  your  chairs  quietly  enough,  yet  the 
fact  really  is  that  you  are  flying  through  space 
at  the  rate  of  more  than  a  thousand  miles  every 
minute.  We  go  a  thousand  miles  every  hour 
with  the  earth's  motion  round  its  own  axis,  and 
68,000  miles  every  hour  in  its  yearly  flight 
round  the  sun.  It  is  just  as  if  we  were  to  glue 
some  wee  bit  of  an  insect  to  the  side  of  a  ball, 
and  hurl  the  ball  with  all  our  might  at  some 
object.  You  know  how  it  goes  whirling  round 
and  on  toward  the  mark  at  the  same  time,  — 


The  Invisible  Part  of  this  World    275 

only  we  are  being  hurled  with  a  motion  a  hun 
dred  times  more  rapid.  Suppose  I  had  a 
pistol  here,  and  should  fire  it  at  the  wall  yon 
der  ;  the  bullet  would  sing  through  the  air  with 
such  swiftness  that  you  would  perceive  no  in 
terval  between  the  bang  of  the  powder  and 
the  thud  of  the  lead  in  the  plaster.  Yet  we 
are  this  moment  whizzing  off  to  the  eastward 
swifter  than  the  pistol  ball.  You  look  out  of 
the  window  and  see  the  snowy  line  of  the 
Sierras  on  the  horizon,  and  before  I  have  had 
time  to  speak  the  words  we  have  reached  the 
point  in  space  where  those  white  summits  were 
as  I  began  this  sentence,  and  are  already  spin 
ning  on  far  beyond.  It  is  hard  to  realize  this, 
and  do  you  see  why?  It  is  because  we  are 
used  to  thinking  of  rapid  motion  as  something 
that  makes  the  air  rush  against  our  faces,  while 
stationary  objects  appear  to  be  passing  behind 
us  as  we  go ;  whereas  in  this  case  we  have  no 
stationary  objects  at  our  side,  and  the  air,  in 
stead  of  blowing  against  us,  sticks  fast  to  the 
earth  and  flies  along  with  us.  If  for  an  instant 
the  atmosphere  could  be  stopped  while  the 
earth  went  on,  there  would  be  suddenly  such  a 
blast  of  wind  as  would  crush  this  building  to 
the  ground  like  the  crushing  of  an  egg-shell. 

But  it  is  in  ourselves,  after  all,  that  we  may 
find  the  most  wonderful  things  in  the  world.  A 


276  Psychology  and  Ethics 

microcosm,  the  old  sages  used  to  call  man,  —  a 
word  which  those  of  you  who  are  studying 
Greek  know  means  a  little  world  ;  meaning  by 
that  that  man  contains  in  himself  in  miniature 
all  the  forces  and  elements  of  the  whole  world. 
A  human  body,  if  you  will  only  think  of  it,  is  all 
made  up  of  wonderful  forces.  Consider  the 
mechanism  which  is  incessantly  pumping  blood 
through  our  arteries  and  veins.  You  see  a 
person  sitting  quietly  in  his  seat,  and  you  would 
never  suspect  that  such  a  piece  of  machinery 
was  working  away  inside  of  him.  But  there  is 
the  heart,  pump-pump-pumping  away,  day  and 
night,  sending  in  each  hour  many  gallons  of 
blood  through  our  systems.  And  as  you  may 
see  if  you  watch  the  circulation  in  a  bat's  wing 
under  the  microscope,  the  blood  does  not  creep 
slowly  along,  as  we  are  apt  to  imagine,  but  the 
red  streams  go  darting  swift  as  an  arrow  along 
their  slender  channels,  —  into  the  limbs,  down 
to  the  finger-ends  and  the  feet,  and  back  again 
to  the  wonderful  pumping  heart. 

Then  the  muscular  force,  —  what  a  strange 
thing  that  is  !  Here  is  this  book  lying  here,  — 
the  whole  earth,  through  the  attraction  of  grav 
itation,  is  pulling  upon  that  book,  tons  of  solid 
planet  holding  it  down  ;  and  here  is  my  arm,  a 
mere  piece  of  bone  with  a  cord  of  flesh  cover 
ing  it,  —  just  such  red  flesh  and  white  bone  as 


The  In-visible  Part  of  this  World    277 

we  see  lying  powerless  in  the  butcher  shops,  — 
and  all  I  have  to  do  is  to  call  into  action  the 
muscular  force,  and  up  comes  the  book,  in 
spite  of  the  whole  earth's  resistance.  The  brain 
recalls  to  itself  this  invisible  force,  and  how 
quickly  the  earth  snatches  the  book  back  ! 

Consider,  too,  what  is  called  the  assimilating 
power  in  our  bodies.  That  is,  the  power  which 
takes  up  food  and  digests  it  and  changes  it 
into  flesh  and  bone.  Here  is  a  strange,  invisi 
ble  force  in  each  of  us,  which  takes  a  little 
bread  and  meat,  and  in  a  few  hours'  time 
makes  it  into  muscle  and  brain.  There  would 
seem  to  be  no  similarity  between  a  loaf  of 
bread  and  a  man's  strength,  yet  this  hidden 
power  actually  changes  one  into  the  other. 
The  hungry  soldier,  who  has  marched  a  long 
day  without  food,  and  is  ready  to  lie  down  tired 
out,  and  wishing  the  war  were  over,  has  his 
good  cup  of  coffee  and  his  beefsteak,  and  out 
of  them  this  invisible  assimilating  power  makes 
for  him  strength  and  courage,  and  he  gets  up 
stout  and  cheery,  ready  to  hurrah  for  the  Pre 
sident,  and  to  defeat  any  amount  of  rebel  bat 
talions.  Every  moment  these  vital  forces  in 
our  bodies  are  at  work,  repairing  the  waste 
that  is  incessantly  going  on.  So  that  if  we 
could  see  what  is  to  our  eyes  invisible,  we 
should  behold  in  man  as  the  ultimate  skeleton, 


278  Psychology  and  Ethics 

not  a  bundle  of  motionless  bones,  but  a  living 
fountain  of  forces,  streaming  from  the  brain 
along  the  intricate  web-work  of  the  nerves,  so 
rapid  as  to  seem  a  mere  flash  of  incessant 
motion  from  head  to  foot. 

But  if  these  vital  forces  of  the  body  are  won 
derful,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  invisible 
mindl  Here  in  each  of  us  is  a  marvelous 
thing :  a  thinking  mind,  a  force  that  never 
pauses,  which  you  cannot  stop  if  you  try.  Try 
for  a  moment  not  to  think,  and  your  very  idea 
of  not  thinking  is  a  thought,  followed  in  spite 
of  you  by  some  other  thought.  And  here  we 
reach  what  is  really  man :  the  body  is  nothing ; 
horses  have  just  such  bodily  powers  as  you  and 
I  ;  they  digest  food,  and  have  muscles,  and 
lungs,  and  eyes.  But  here  in  you  and  me 
there  is  something  different,  —  an  invisible 
something  in  us  by  which  we  can  gain  know 
ledge,  and  can  understand  the  curious  world 
we  are  living  in.  Here  we  can  sit  in  this  room, 
and  by  our  minds  we  can  go  out  of  this  room, 
and  think  about  distant  countries  and  distant 
times ;  can  be  glad  or  sorry  about  events  and 
people  of  past  times,  long  before  we  were  born  ; 
can  even  go  off  away  from  this  little  planet 
Earth  altogether,  and  occupy  ourselves  with 
far-off  worlds,  weighing  the  moon,  or  measur 
ing  the  girth  of  Jupiter  and  Mars.  And  here 


The  In-visible  Part  of  this  World    279 

is  the  most  difficult  of  all  the  invisible  things 
to  realize.  We  are  all  the  time  thinking  of  the 
bodies  of  men  and  women  as  their  real  selves. 
We  say  such  a  person  is  beautiful,  or  such  a 
one  ugly,  or  weak,  when  in  reality  the  girl 
whose  face  happens  to  be  homely  may  be  most 
beautiful  in  spirit,  and  the  boy  who  seems  weak 
or  deformed  may  in  his  real  self,  his  mind,  be 
the  most  vigorous  and  graceful  of  all  of  us. 
We  treasure  up  photographs  of  our  friends' 
faces  as  their  likenesses,  wheri  really  a  letter 
they  have  written,  or  some  generous  action 
they  have  performed,  is  a  much  truer  picture 
of  them,  because  it  shows  us  something  of  their 
real  self,  the  invisible  mind.  When  we  look 
at  a  person's  head,  we  do  not  see  the  real  per 
son.  We  only  see  a  skull,  made  up  for  the 
most  part  of  lime ;  and  if  we  could  peep  under 
the  skull,  we  should  only  see  a  ball  of  whitish 
substance  called  the  brain ;  and  we  might 
search  through  and  through  and  discover  no 
thing  of  the  wonderful  mind.  We  must  try  to 
get  rid  of  this  idea  that  the  body  is  the  person. 
We  must  think  of  a  man  not  as  a  body  with  a 
soul  in  it,  but  as  a  soul  with  a  body  round  it. 
Perhaps  we  sometimes  feel  proud  of  some  bod 
ily  superiority  to  others,  or  feel  pained  and 
hurt  about  some  physical  defect  or  awkward 
ness.  But  that  is  very  foolish.  It  is  just  as  if 


280  Psychology  and  Ethics 

you  were  traveling  on  horseback,  and  should 
meet  some  neighbor  better  mounted  than  you 
were  :  you  would  never  think  of  being  ashamed 
or  feeling  badly  because  he  was  riding  a  hand 
somer  horse.  And  just  so  the  mind  is,  as  it 
were,  mounted  on  the  body,  as  a  man  is  on  a 
horse  ;  and  it  ought  to  govern  the  body  (which 
just  now  in  this  world  happens  to  be  carrying 
it  about),  just  as  the  good  rider  does  his  steed. 
And  as  we  laugh  at  a  man  who  lets  his  horse 
run  away  with  him,  just  so  we  ought  to  see  that 
it  is  ridiculous  for  people  to  let  their  physical 
aches,  and  troubles,  and  pleasures  run  away 
with  their  minds. 

You  see  we  must  get  used  to  thinking  of 
these  invisible  things  as  real,  or  we  shall  go 
through  life  without  half  appreciating  what  a 
beautiful  world  this  is.  We  have  no  business 
to  go  about  only  half  attending  to  what  is  all 
around  us.  Many  people  go  through  life  as 
snails  do,  carrying  their  whole  world  on  their 
backs ;  seeing  and  thinking  of  nothing  except 
clothes  and  food,  and  their  little  daily  circum 
stances  of  pleasure  or  trouble.  If  we  mean 
to  be  anything  higher  than  a  sort  of  human 
snails,  we  must  go  about,  not  only  with  our  eyes 
open,  but  with  our  minds  open.  We  need  to 
be  constantly  jogging  ourselves  on  the  elbow 
and  reminding  ourselves  to  notice  this  thing 


The  Invisible  Part  of  this  World    281 

and  that,  or  else  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  ex 
istence  of  everything  except  what  is  held  up 
plainly  before  our  eyes.  We  must  be  con 
stantly  recollecting  that  because  a  thing  is  in 
visible,  it  is  none  the  less  real.  For  instance, 
if  we  go  out  into  the  street  now  in  broad  day 
light,  and  look  up  at  the  sky,  we  do  not  think 
of  there  being  anything  there  above  us  except 
what  we  see,  the  blue  sky  and  the  white  clouds. 
And  yet  we  know,  if  we  will  only  think  of  it, 
that  even  now  overhead  there  are  all  the  beau 
tiful  burning  stars,  Orion  and  the  Pleiades  and 
the  Great  Dipper,  wheeling  across  the  sky,  just 
as  fair  and  solemn  as  at  midnight. 

You  know  the  earth  is  often  spoken  of  as 
the  common  habitation  of  beasts  and  birds  and 
men,  all  living  in  the  same  world.  But  think 
what  a  false  idea  this  is  !  The  spider  only  in 
habits  its  little  cobweb  in  the  corner,  seeing 
and  knowing  nothing  beyond ;  while  to  us  the 
whole  world  is  given  to  live  in.  We  look  into 
the  stones  and  rocks,  and  read  there  the  his 
tory  of  our  planet ;  we  investigate  the  most 
hidden  forces  that  are  moving  throughout  na 
ture  ;  we  are  interested  at  the  same  moment  in 
things  in  Virginia,  in  Europe,  in  Asia,  —  in  the 
times  of  the  Greeks,  and  of  the  Puritans,  and 
of  our  own  heroes  of  to-day.  As  the  insect 
reaches  out  with  its  long  tentacles  and  feels 


282  Psychology  and  Ethics 

about  its  little  world,  so  we  go  feeling  about 
with  our  restless  minds,  reaching  out  through 
the  whole  universe ;  down  through  the  micro 
scope  into  the  invisible  atoms  and  origins  of  all 
living  things,  up  through  the  telescope  among 
the  boundless  spaces  where  the  only  landmarks 
are  the  innumerable  stars. 

We  must  not  feel,  either,  any  of  that  dread 
of  invisible  things  which  is  natural  to  ignorant 
people.  You  know  that  in  very  early  ages  of 
the  world,  when  men  were  barbarous  and  igno 
rant,  they  invented  all  sorts  of  fables  about 
evil  spirits,  and  goblins,  and  ghosts,  and  all 
manner  of  such  nonsense.  They  felt  that  there 
were  forces  in  action  all  around  them  which 
they  could  not  see  and  understand,  and  there 
fore  they  were  afraid  of  them,  and  imagined 
various  foolish  terrors  to  be  frightened  at.  It 
is  just  so  with  us  sometimes  when  we  lie  awake 
in  the  dark :  we  have  a  feeling  of  dread,  sim 
ply  because  we  can't  plainly  see  what  is  around 
us.  But  we  must  remember  that  it  is  simply 
our  ignorance  that  makes  us  timid.  If  we 
could  see  things  clearly  just  as  they  are,  we 
should  be  wise  enough  to  see  that  everything 
in  the  world  is  meant  for  our  good,  that  so 
long  as  we  go  about  with  reverent  hearts  and 
pure  minds,  all  the  powers  and  forces' of  the 
world  are  on  our  side,  guarding  us  from  harm. 


The  Invisible  Part  of  this  World    283 

Even  in  the  old  ignorant  times,  we  can  see 
what  a  healthy,  sunshiny  sort  of  people  the 
English  were,  from  the  fact  that  their  mytho 
logy  rather  ran  to  benevolent  fairies  and  "  good 
folk,"  as  they  used  to  call  their  imaginary 
sprites,  instead  of  the  fierce  demons  which  the 
coarse  and  brutal  minds  of  some  other  peoples 
conjured  up. 

I  don't  think  it  is  often  that  we  find  any 
thing  very  well  worth  reading  in  newspapers ; 
but  I  read  a  little  incident  in  a  newspaper  a 
while  ago  which  pleased  me.  It  told  about 
a  little  baby  that  was  creeping  about  on  the 
carpet  one  morning,  when  the  sunshine  was 
streaming  in  through  the  window,  and  lying 
broad  and  warm  on  the  floor.  The  little  child, 
after  creeping  around  it  for  some  minutes, 
laughing  out  its  innocent  delight  at  the  sun 
beam's  cheerfulness  and  warmth,  finally  put  its 
little  mouth  down  and  kissed  it.  And  just  so, 
I  thought,  we  ought  to  feel  toward  all  Nature, 

—  we  ought  to  love  it,  not  fear  it.     The  more 
broadly  we  live,  and  the  more  deeply  we  look 
into   the   kind,  beautiful   eyes  of   Nature,  the 
more  we  shall  feel  that  while  we  are  pure  and 
good  the  whole  universe  is  in  harmony  with  us, 
and  all  its  vast  forces,  seen  and  unseen,  are 
only  so  many  guardian  angels  helping  us  along, 

—  so  many  pleasant  friends,  helping  us  to  be 


284  Psychology  and  Ethics 

wise  and  happy;  our  little  aches  and  pains  are 
only  meant  to  teach  us  necessary  lessons ;  and 
even  if  we  die,  it  is  only  setting  us  free,  lead 
ing  us  to  some  other  even  more  beautiful  world, 
of  which  we  at  least  know  this,  as  the  old  Ro 
man  emperor  wrote,  that  whatever  it  is,  we  are 
sure  there  will  be  no  lack  of  God  there,  to  take 
care  of  us.  The  more  we  know  of  the  things 
about  us,  and  of  each  other,  the  better  we  shall 
understand,  as  Coleridge  says,  that 

"  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small ; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us 
He  made  and  loveth  all." 


Education 

SHOULD   A   COLLEGE   EDUCATE? 

N  the  "  American  language  "  (which  is 
simply  the  most  modern  English)  a 
college  and  a  university  are  two  dif 
ferent  things.  The  terms  are  sometimes  con 
founded,  in  loose  popular  speech,  but  the  best 
usage  in  this  country  shows  an  increasing  ten 
dency  toward  a  sharp  distinction  between  them. 
A  failure  to  apprehend  this  distinction  clearly, 
and  a  consequent  notion  that  a  college  is  only 
a  little  university,  or  a  university  only  a  large 
college,  has  sometimes  given  rise  to  odd  doc 
trine  as  to  what  a  college  should  teach. 

In  their  original  signification  the  words  are 
not  widely  different :  the  universitas  signifying 
merely  a  *'  corporate  whole,"  in  law ;  the  colle 
gium,  a  "  society  of  colleagues."  But  the  term 
university,  in  its  development  in  Europe  and 
this  country,  and  the  term  college,  in  its  devel 
opment  in  this  country  especially,  have  become 
widely  differentiated.  That  which  is  properly 
called  a  university  has  its  own  distinct  pur- 


286  Education 

pose,  and  consequently  its  own  proper  methods 
and  appliances.  That  which  is  properly  called 
a  college  has  a  different  purpose,  and  its  meth 
ods  and  appliances  are  consequently  entirely 
different. 

Ideally,  a  university  is  a  place  where  any 
body  may  learn  everything.  And  this,  whether 
it  be  as  knowledge,  properly  speaking,  or  as 
skill.  Actually,  however,  as  found  existing  at 
present  (since  few  persons  after  leaving  col 
lege  wish  to  study  beyond  the  requirements  of 
a  bread-occupation),  a  university  consists  of  a 
central  college,  surrounded  by  a  cluster  of  pro 
fessional  or  technical  schools,  where  special 
branches  are  pursued,  chiefly  with  reference  to 
some  particular  calling. 

A  college^  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  place  where 
young  people,  whatever  their  future  occupation 
is  to  be,  may  first  of  all  receive  that  more  or 
less  complete  development  which  we  call  a 
"  liberal  education."  J 

1  In  one  or  two  instances  our  state  charters  have  em 
ployed  these  terms,  university  and  college,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  confuse  any  rational  or  usual  distinction  between 
them.  The  State  of  California,  for  instance,  has  a  "  Uni 
versity  of  California,"  consisting  of  a  College  of  Letters, 
a  College  of  Agriculture,  a  College  of  Mining,  etc.  Of 
these  only  the  College  of  Letters  answers  to  the  accepted 
sense  of  the  term  "  college,"  the  others  being  what  are 
more  properly  called  professional  or  technical  "schools." 


Should  a  College  Educate?        287 

The  character  of  the  college  course,  then, 
should  be  determined  purely  with  reference  to 
the  distinct  purpose  of  the  college.  The  hu 
man  mind  being  many-sided,  the  college  under 
takes  to  aid  its  development  on  all  the  lines  of 
its  natural  growth.  The  tendency  of  modern 
life,  moreover,  with  its  extreme  division  of  la 
bor,  being  to  force  one  or  two  powers  of  the 
mind  at  the  expense  of  the  rest,  the  aim  of  the 
college  is  to  forestall  this  one-sided  effect  by 
giving  the  whole  man  a  fair  chance  beforehand. 
While  the  special  or  professional  schools  of  the 
university  provide  that  a  person  may  go  as  far 
as  possible  on  some  one  line  of  knowledge, 
which  constitutes  his  specialty,1  or  of  that  com- 

The  use  of  the  words  at  Cambridge  (U.  S.)  illustrates 
their  almost  universal  application  in  this  country  :  "  Har 
vard  University  "  consisting  (in  the  language  of  the  an 
nual  catalogue)  of  "  Harvard  College,  the  Divinity  School, 
the  Law  School,  the  Lawrence  Scientific  School,"  etc. 

1  The  Johns  Hopkins  University,  at  Baltimore,  fur 
nishes  one  example,  in  this  country,  of  a  "university" 
in  somewhat  the  sense  of  the  term  as  used  abroad.  It 
does  not,  it  is  true,  exclude  college  work,  but  it  main 
tains  chairs  of  original  research,  and  at  the  same  time 
provides  advanced  instruction  for  graduate  students  on 
special  lines  of  study,  other  than  those  of  the  usual  pro 
fessional  schools.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  fact  of  its 
carrying  on  undergraduate  college  work  does  not  indi 
cate  any  danger  of  its  being  checked  in  its  full  career, 
through  some  possible  unripeness  of  its  public  for  its 


288  Education 

bination  of  knowledge  and  skill  which  consti 
tutes  his  profession,  the  college  provides  that 
he  shall  get  such  a  complete  possession  of 
himself  —  in  all  his  powers:  mind,  body,  and 
that  total  of  qualities  known  as  "character"  — 
as  is  essential  to  the  highest  success  in  any 
specialty  or  profession  whatever.  He  may  get 
this  broad  preparation  elsewhere  than  in  col 
lege.  It  may  come  through  private  study.  It 
may  come  sometimes  —  but  only  to  men  of  ex 
traordinary  endowments —  from  the  discipline 
of  life  itself.  But  to  the  ordinary  man,  the 
"  average  man,"  it  comes  most  surely  and  most 
easily  through  a  college  course.  Once  having 
it,  from  one  source  or  another,  a  man  no  doubt 
fits  himself  best  to  serve  the  world  by  perfect 
ing  his  knowledge  and  skill  in  some  single 
direction  ;  but  without  some  such  broad  pre 
liminary  development,  some  such  "  liberal  edu 
cation,"  he  will  fail  not  only  of  his  best  possible 
special  work,  but  —  what  is  worst  of  all  —  he 
will  assuredly  fail  of  that  best  service  which 
any  man  can  do  for  the  community,  the  living 
in  it,  whatever  his  profession,  as  a  complete 
and  roundly  moulded  man.  He  will  fail  (to 
use  Mr.  Spencer's  excellent  phrase)  of  "  com 
plete  living."  He  will  have  entered  the  world 

more  advanced  work,  and  warped  toward  an  ordinary 
university  with  a  college  and  professional  schools  only. 


Should  a  College  Educate?        289 

without  being  equipped  for  that  great  common 
profession,  the  profession  of  living  —  under 
neath  and  above  his  particular  calling — the 
intellectual  life. 

But  (it  may  be  asked)  why  may  not  the  uni 
versity,  through  some  one  of  its  special  schools, 
furnish  this  culture  without  the  need  of  a  col 
lege  ?  Because  a  man  is  too  complex  an  organ 
ism  to  get  complete  growth  in  any  single  region 
of  study,  or  by  any  one  line  of  exercises. 

But,  at  least  (it  may  further  be  asked),  might 
not  the  ideal  university,  with  its  whole  circle  of 
knowledges,  professional  and  otherwise,  give 
this  complete  culture  ?  In  other  words,  why 
should  not  the  college  add  to  its  course  all 
kinds  of  knowledges,  and  so  itself  become  an 
ideal  university,  where  anybody  might  learn 
everything  ?  It  is  the  theory  implied  in  this 
question  that  produces  the  tendency  toward 
unlimited  "  electives  "  in  the  college  course. 
There  should  be  no  difficulty  in  seeing  why 
this  is  an  irrational  tendency,  however  attrac 
tive  it  may  seem  at  first  sight  to  the  public. 
It  is  irrational  because  the  time  actually  given 
to  college  study  is  no  more  than  four  years ;  in 
this  time  only  a  few  subjects  can  be  studied ; 
and  the  very  essence  of  the  function  of  the  col 
lege  is,  therefore,  that  it  should  select  among 
the  numberless  possible  subjects  those  which 


290  Education 

promise  the  greatest  educating  force.  For  we 
reach,  at  this  point  in  the  discussion,  a  fact 
that  underlies  the  whole  system  of  any  right 
education  —  a  fact  persistently  ignored  by 
many  persons  having  to  do  with  educational 
affairs,  particularly  in  the  lower  schools  and  in 
remote  communities,  and  on  the  ignorance  of 
which  no  end  of  educational  blunders  have 
been  built.  It  is  the  fact  that,  while  every 
possible  knowledge  and  skill  is  useful  for  one 
purpose  or  another,  not  all  are  equally  useful 
for  the  purposes  of  education.  The  college, 
therefore,  must  select  such  studies  as  are  most 
useful  for  its  own  purposes.  So  far  as  the  uni 
versity  undertakes  to  prescribe  any  such  gen 
eral  or  culture  course,  it  becomes  a  college. 
So  far  as  the  college  forgets  to  do  this,  in  de 
ference  to  notions  of  a  "  practical  "  training,  or 
of  the  magnificence  of  a  great  cloud  of  elec- 
tives,  it  does  not  become  a  university  —  for 
that,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  is  impossible  ; 
but  it  fails  of  its  true  function  as  a  college,  and 
is  no  longer  either  the  one  thing  or  the  other. 

The  ideal  of  a  great  university  where  any 
body  might  learn  everything  has  a  peculiar 
charm  for  the  imagination.  Bacon  sketched 
the  large  outlines  of  such  an  establishment  in 
his  "  New  Atlantis ;  "  and  ever  since  his  day 
we  have  come  to  see  more  and  more  clearly 


Should  a  College  Educate  ?        291 

that  knowledge  does  indeed  make  prosperity, 
whether  for  peoples  or  for  individuals.  No 
thing  can  be  more  charming,  then,  than  the 
thought  of  a  great  central  institution  where  the 
last  word  on  every  subject  might  be  heard; 
where  the  foremost  scientist  in  every  science, 
the  foremost  craftsman  in  every  handicraft, 
should  impart  the  entirety  of  his  acquisitions 
or  his  dexterity  to  all  who  cared  to  seek  it. 
Such  a  university  ought,  it  would  seem,  to  be 
accessible  to  every  community  in  this  modern 
world. 

But  all  this  would  not  give  us  a  college. 
That  we  have  only  when  we  have  a  company 
of  competent  scholars  providing  a  course  of 
general  preliminary  training ;  a  course  selected 
with  reference  to  its  particular  end  of  producing 
broadly  educated  men.  The  university,  taking 
the  man  as  he  is,  would  propose  to  leave  him 
as  he  is.  except  for  the  acquisition  of  a  certain 
special  knowledge  or  skill.  The  college,  taking 
the  youth  as  he  is,  proposes  to  make  of  him 
something  that  he  is  not.  It  proposes  no  less 
a  miracle,  in  fact,  than  the  changing  of  a  crude 
boy  into  an  educated  man.  A  miracle,  —  yet 
every  day  sees  it  more  and  more  successfully 
performed. 

An  educated  man  —  what  is  it  that  we  un 
derstand  by  the  phrase?  If  it  would  not  be 


292  Education 

easy  to  set  down  all  that  it  connotes  in  our 
various  minds,  we  should  probably  agree  that 
it  includes,  among  other  things,  such  quali 
ties  as  these  :  a  certain  largeness  of  view ;  an 
acquaintance  with  the  intellectual  life  of 
the  world ;  the  appreciation  of  principles ;  the 
power  and  habit  of  independent  thought ;  the 
freedom  from  personal  provincialism,  and  the 
recognition  of  the  other  point  of  view  ;  an  un 
derlying  nobleness  of  intention  ;  the  persist 
ence  in  magnanimous  aims.  If  there  has  not 
yet  been  found  the  system  of  culture  which 
will  give  this  result  every  time  and  with  all 
sorts  of  material,  it  may  at  least  be  asserted 
that  a  course  of  study  —  whether  in  college  or 
out  —  somewhat  corresponding  to  the  course 
pursued  at  our  best  colleges  has  a  visible  ten 
dency  to  produce  this  result.  Whether  it  might 
be  produced,  also,  by  some  entirely  different 
course  is  certainly  a  question  not  to  be  rashly 
answered  in  the  negative.  All  we  can  say  is, 
that  any  course  which  has  as  yet  been  proposed 
as  a  substitute  has  proved,  on  experiment,  to 
have  serious  defects  in  comparison  with  it. 
Our  wisest  plan  is  to  hold  fast  what  we  already 
know  to  be  good  studies,  making  further  exper 
iments  with  candor  and  fairness  ;  avoiding,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  timid  pre-judgments  of  those 
who  are  afraid  of  all  that  is  not  ancient  and 


Should  a  College  Educate?        293 

established,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  crude 
enthusiasms  of  those  half-educated  persons  who 
think  that  nothing  old  can  be  good,  and  no 
thing  new  can  be  bad. 

Two  principal  proposals  of  change  in  the 
college  course  have  been  made.  One  is  that 
the  modern  languages  should  be  substituted 
for  the  ancient.  So  far  as  the  complete  sub 
stitution  has  been  tried,  most  observers  would 
probably  agree  that  the  experiment  has  failed. 
In  other  words,  more  persons  are  found  to  have 
studied  modern  languages  without  having  be 
come  "educated"  persons  by  that  means  than 
are  found  to  have  studied  the  classics  without 
that  result.  College  observers,  unbiased  by 
any  personal  interest  as  teachers  on  either  side, 
would  probably  be  found  nearly  unanimous  as 
to  this  point.  Without  discussing  the  question 
theoretically  here,  we  would  only  insist  upon 
this :  that,  so  far  as  any  change  of  this  kind  is 
made,  it  be  made  only  on  the  ground  of  greater 
serviceableness  for  purely  educational  pur 
poses,  as  being  better  fitted  to  "  educe  the 
man  "  —  the  only  test  of  studies  with  which  the 
college  has  anything  whatever  to  do.  Prob 
ably  Mill's  answer,  or  counter-question,  will 
eventually  be  found  the  wisest  one  as  between 
the  classical  and  the  modern  languages  and 
literatures  :  "  Why  not  both  ?  " 


294  Education 

The  other  principal  proposal  of  change  is 
the  substitution  of  natural  science  in  place  of 
the  "humanities."  To  the  addition  of  a  cer 
tain  amount  of  natural  science,  enough,  cer 
tainly,  to  impart  its  admirable  methods  of  re 
search,  and,  what  is  more,  its  admirable  spirit 
of  uncompromising  adhesion  to  the  exact 
truth,  no  one  is  likely  to  object.  But  when  it 
is  proposed  to  make  any  radical  substitution  of 
the  material  studies  for  the  human  studies, 
making  courses  (as  has  been  done)  without 
Latin,  Greek,  Literature,  Logic,  Philosophy, 
Ancient  History,  etc.,  supplying  their  places 
with  the  natural  sciences,  it  is  well  to  consider 
carefully,  first,  the  results  of  the  experiment  so 
far  as  it  has  been  tried  ;  and,  secondly,  certain 
well-established  principles  concerning  the  hu 
man  mind  in  its  relation  to  studies.  As  to 
ascertained  results,  it  is  to  be  said  that  for 
some  time  now  there  have  been,  in  several  of 
our  institutions  of  learning,  courses  having 
these  contrasted  characters  running  side  by 
side.  We  will  not  here  offer  any  testimony  of 
our  own  as  to  the  comparative  results  of  the 
two  in  the  production  of  broadly  educated  men. 
We  would  only  suggest  to  those  who  are  in 
any  doubt  upon  the  matter,  or  who  have  any 
radical  change  of  college  courses  in  view,  to 
look  into  the  results  of  the  experiment  for 


Should  a  College  Educate?        295 

themselves,  and  to  take  the  testimony  of  those 
who  have  had  opportunity  to  observe  them. 
The  effect  of  such  an  examination  will  be  likely 
to  produce  hearty  agreement  with  an  editorial 
writer  in  a  late  number  of  "  Science,"  who 
remarks  that  "the  introduction  of  scientific 
studies  in  our  educational  systems  has  not 
brought  about  the  millennium  which  was  ex 
pected."  Much  good,  no  doubt,  they  have 
done,  when  introduced  in  proper  proportion. 
Their  methods  have  certainly  influenced  favor 
ably  the  methods  of  the  older  studies.  But, 
after  all,  we  come  back  to  the  truth  that,  of  the 
two  groups  of  studies,  both  indispensable,  the 
humanities  furnish  the  greater  growth-power 
for  the  mind,  because  they  are  the  product  and 
expression  of  mind.1 

It  cannot  be  too  carefully  kept  in  view  that, 
in  any  such  comparison  of  the  natural  sciences 
with  the  humanities,  we  take  into  account  only 

1  Sometimes  we  hear  the  curious  remark  made,  per 
haps  by  one  of  the  weaker  brethren  among  those  very 
useful  persons,  the  dealers  in  second-hand  science  (Pop 
ular  Science),  that  the  book  of  nature  is  the  expression 
of  the  mind  of  God,  while  other  books  only  express  the 
mind  of  man.  But  it  does  not  require  great  acumen  to 
perceive  that  the  mind  of  man  and  all  its  productions 
are  also  the  work  and  the  expression  of  the  same  Author 
—  his  Bible,  one  might  say,  to  carry  on  the  figure,  while 
material  nature  is  only  his  spelling-book. 


296  Education 

their  educational  value.  The  sensitive  loyalty 
of  scientific  men  to  their  specialties,  a  very 
pleasant  thing  to  see,  sometimes  seems  to 
blind  them  to  this  distinction  between  intrinsic 
values  and  educational  values.  They  should 
remember  that  no  slight  upon  the  intrinsic 
value  of  any  science  is  implied  in  the  doubt  as 
to  its  comparative  educational  value.  There 
are  many  things  of  enormous  usefulness  to  the 
world  in  other  ways,  whose  examination  could 
contribute  next  to  nothing  toward  the  develop 
ment  of  mind.  Iron,  for  example,  constitutes 
almost  the  framework  of  civilization ;  but  this 
does  not  at  all  imply  that  metallurgy,  as  a  col 
lege  study,  would  have  any  considerable  edu 
cating  force.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
many  subjects  of  study  whose  application  to 
the  ordinary  business  of  life  might  seem  very 
remote  indeed,  yet  whose  power  to  "  educe  the 
man  "  is  found  to  be  very  great./  The  calculus, 
or  the  Antigone,  might  never  be  of  any  "  use  " 
to  the  man,  in  the  superficial  sense  of  the  word, 
yet  they  might  have  been  the  very  meat  and 
drink  of  his  intellectual  growth.  The  natural 
sciences  may  well  be  satisfied  with  the  crowns 
of  honor  the  world  must  always  give  them  for 
their  royal  contributions  to  our  mental  and 
material  existence,  without  expecting  to  be 
made  exclusively,  also,  our  nurses  and  school- 


Should  a  College  Educate  ?         297 

masters.  The  fitness  for  those  humbler  but 
necessary  functions  must  be  determined  wholly 
on  other  grounds  than  that  of  value,  however 
priceless  it  be,  to  the  world  for  other  purposes. 
Both  experiment  and  reflection  seem  to  point 
more  and  more  decisively  to  the  view  that 
mind,  on  the  whole,  grows  chiefly  through  con 
tact  with  mind.  And  accordingly,  what  are 
called  the  liberal  courses  of  study,  formed 
largely  of  those  studies  which  bring  to  the  stu 
dent  the  magnetic  touch  of  the  human  spirit  in 
its  dealings  with  life,  seem  to  show  more  vital 
izing  power,  —  seem  actually  to  produce,  on 
experiment,  more  broadly  educated  men  than 
what  may  be  called  the  illiberal  courses,  formed 
without  these  human  studies.  Yet  here,  again, 
"  Why  not  both  ?  "  is  the  best  solution,  so  far 
as  we  can  effect  it.  For  the  natural  sciences 
have,  undeniably,  certain  admirable  influences 
in  education.  They  are  free  from  any  encour 
agement  of  morbid  moods.  They  teach  the 
mind  to  "  hug  its  fact."  There  is  little  minis 
try  to  brooding  egotism  in  them ;  except  that 
sometimes  a  very  callow  pupil  may  for  a  while 
feel  that  the  mastery  of  a  few  rudiments  some 
how  covers  him  prematurely  with  the  glory  that 
properly  belongs  to  the  great  discoverers  ;  but 
from  this  stage  he  soon  recovers.  There  is 
always  a  freshness  and  out-of-door  healthful- 


298  Education 

ness  about  even  the  simplest  work  in  natural 
science  that  makes  it  a  charming  study,  for  the 
lower  schools,  especially.  Mr.  Spencer  has 
well  pointed  out  its  adaptation,  on  this  score, 
even  to  the  period  of  childhood.  It  is,  in  fact, 
so  far  as  it  includes  only  the  observation  of 
outside  nature,  an  invigorating  play  of  the 
mind,  rather  than  a  laborious  work.  And  the 
need  of  this  health-giving  intellectual  play  we 
never  outgrow. 

But  the  attractiveness  of  these  natural  studies 
must  not  be  allowed  to  blind  us  to  the  need, 
when  it  -comes  to  forming  a  course  for  the 
maturer  mind,  of  more  abstract  and  complex 
subjects.  The  sciences  in  their  higher  and 
severer  regions,  where  the  mind  of  man  has 
more  and  more  mingled  itself  with  the  mere 
facts  of  nature,  as  in  wide  comparative  views 
and  the  induction  of  great  principles ;  and  espe 
cially  the  purely  human  studies,  the  languages, 
histories,  philosophies,  literatures,  —  these  must 
be  the  food  and  light  of  the  larger  growth  of 
the  mind.  The  law  of  intellectual  development 
in  education  seems  to  be  analogous  to  a  cer 
tain  familiar  law  of  physical  growth  in  lower 
organisms.  The  very  lowest,  the  vegetable,  is 
able  to  nourish  itself  directly  on  the  crude 
inorganic  elements  of  nature  :  the  higher,  the 
animal,  can  only  be  nourished  on  matter  al- 


Should  a  College  Educate  ?        299 

ready  organized  by  life.  Somewhat  so,  appar 
ently,  with  the  growth  of  intellect :  while  the 
simpler  faculties,  such  as  we  share  with  other 
animals,  are  able  to  get  their  full  development 
from  the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  alone,  the 
deeper  feelings  and  the  higher  intellectual  pro 
cesses  can  be  best  nourished  on  the  outcome 
of  the  human  spirit  —  nature  and  life  as  organ 
ized,  or  reorganized,  by  the  mind  of  man. 

In  meeting  the  public  on  this  matter  of  the 
course  of  study,  the  college  finds  itself  con 
fronted  with  two  or  three  false  notions,  so  in 
veterate  that  they  may  well  be  classed  as  popu 
lar  delusions.  Each  of  these,  like  most  popular 
delusions,  has  crystallized  round  a  convenient 
phrase. 

One  such  notion  is  that  the  choice  of  studies 
for  any  given  youth  should  be  governed  by  his 
own  natural  predispositions.  In  other  words, 
he  should  "  follow  his  bent."  This  has  a  plau 
sible  sound,  yet  to  apply  it  to  the  college 
course  would  be  to  ignore  the  very  purpose  of 
the  college.  When  it  comes  to  selecting  a  life 
occupation,  a  specialty  for  study  or  practice, 
such  as  the  various  schools  of  the  university 
undertake  to  furnish,  a  youth  should,  no  doubt, 
choose  according  to  his  taste  and  talent.  But 
to  choose  on  that  ground  alone  in  his  prepara 
tory  culture-course  would  simply  magnify  any 


300  Education 

lack  of  balance  in  his  original  nature.  As  well 
might  one  advise  a  boy  at  the  gymnasium  to 
devote  himself  to  those  exercises  in  which  he 
naturally  excelled,  to  the  neglect  of  all  that 
found  out  his  weak  points ;  if  the  arms  were 
feeble,  to  use  only  the  muscles  of  the  thighs ; 
if  the  thighs  were  undeveloped,  to  use  only  the 
arms.  The  purpose  of  the  college  is  to  do  for 
mind  and  character  what  the  gymnasium  does 
for  the  physical  powers  :  to  build  up  the  man 
all  round.  If  the  student  "  hates  mathematics," 
it  is  probably  because  his  mind  is  naturally 
weak  on  the  side  of  abstract  reasoning,  and  the 
hated  study  is  therefore  the  very  study  he 
needs.  If  he  has  a  lofty  disdain  of  literature, 
it  is  very  likely  only  an  evidence  of  some  lack 
of  that  side  of  culture  somewhere  in  his  ances 
try.  There  is  nothing  sacred  about  a  "bent." 
So  far  from  being  an  indication  of  Providence, 
it  is  apt  to  be  a  mere  indication  of  hereditary 
defect.  If  we  look  at  it  from  the  side  of  its 
being  a  predisposition  to  weakness  in  some 
particular  directions,  a  bent  away  from  certain 
lines  of  study  (the  form  in  which  it  chiefly 
shows  itself  in  college),  we  can  see  that  the 
sooner  it  is  repaired  by  a  generous  mental  diet, 
the  better  for  the  man  and  for  the  race  to 
whose  ideal  perfection  he  and  his  posterity  are 
to  contribute.  Perhaps  the  greatest  danger  to 


Should  a  College  Educate?        301 

which  the  higher  education  is  at  present  ex 
posed  is  that  of  spreading  before  the  student 
a  vast  number  of  miscellaneous  subjects,  all 
recommended  as  equally  valuable,  and  inviting 
him  to  choose  according  to  his  bent.  The 
result  naturally  is  that  the  average  boy  follows 
that  universal  bent  of  human  nature  toward 
the  course  that  offers  him  the  easiest  time.  If 
this  course  happens  to  include  strong  studies, 
easy  only  because  he  is  specially  interested  in 
them,  the  harm  is  not  so  great ;  but  if  it  con 
sists  chiefly  of  light  studies,  introduced  into  the 
curriculum  only  because  somebody  was  there 
to  teach  them,  and  somebody  else  wanted  them 
taught  (and  perhaps  a  little,  too,  because  each 
counts  one  in  a  catalogue),  then  the  harm  is 
enormous.  This  becomes  evident  enough  if 
we  use  (as  we  may  for  brevity's  sake  be  per 
mitted  to  do)  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  an 
extreme  illustration ;  if  we  suppose  that  some 
language  having  a  great  history  and  a  great 
literature,  the  Greek,  for  example,  is  rejected 
in  favor  of  some  barbarous  tongue  embodying 
neither  history  nor  literature  ;  say,  for  example, 
the  Pawnee  or  the  Eskimo ;  or  if  we  suppose 
that  for  exercises  in  writing  and  reasoning  is 
substituted  the  collecting  of  postage-stamps  of 
all  nations,  or  practice  on  the  guitar.  Far 
short  of  any  such  violent  extremes,  there  are 


302  Education 

perfectly  well  recognized  differences  between 
the  efficacy  of  one  study  and  another  in  edu 
cating  a  college  student.  And  it  would  seem 
wiser  to  trust  the  choice  to  the  governing  body 
of  the  college  than  to  an  inexperienced  lad, 
swayed  by  some  momentary  whim,  or  by  the 
class-tradition  of  the  "  easiness  "  of  one  sub 
ject  or  another  ;  in  other  words,  by  his  natural 
bent. 

Another  popular  delusion  concerning  the 
college  course  hinges  on  a  common  misuse  of 
the  word  practical.  It  properly  signifies  effec 
tual  in  attaining  one's  end.  So,  transferring  the 
term  to  persons,  we  call  him  a  practical  man 
who  habitually  employs  such  means.  A  "  prac 
tical  study,"  then,  is  in  reality  a  study  which  is 
calculated  to  effect  the  end  we  have  in  view  in 
pursuing  it.  And  since  the  end  in  view  of  a 
college  study  is  purely  and  simply  the  develop 
ment  of  the  mind  and  character,  any  study  is  a 
practical  study  just  to  the  extent  that  it  is 
effectual  for  this  end.  And  any  study  is  a 
completely  unpractical  study,  no  matter  how 
useful  it  may  be  for  other  purposes,  if  it  is 
ineffectual  for  this.  The  real  virus  of  people!s 
misuse  of  this  word  lies  in  their  taking  it  to 
mean,  not  effectual  for  one's  end,  whatever 
it  be,  but  effectual  for  that  particular  end 
which  to  them  happens  to  seem  the  chief  end 


Should  a  College  Educate?        303 

of  man.  If  a  man's  one  aim  is  to  have  a  suc 
cessful  farm,  he  is  apt  to  consider  all  studies 
unpractical  that  do  not  bear  directly  on  agri 
culture.  If  the  great  object  of  another  is  to 
gain  public  office,  to  him  that  study  alone 
seems  "practical"  which  directly  subserves 
this  end.  Accordingly,  there  are  always  found 
well-meaning  persons,  not  conversant  with  edu 
cational  affairs,  who  consider  the  best  studies, 
and  those  which  for  college  purposes  are  most 
practical,  as  being  completely  unpractical ;  and 
who  will  always  be  trying  to  crowd  in  upon  its 
.courses  those  so-called  practical  studies,  which, 
for  the  ends  the  college  has  in  view,  would 
prove  as  unpractical  as  studies  could  be. 

It  furnishes  a  favorite  phrase  for  those  who 
thus  misconceive  the  purpose  of  a  liberal  edu 
cation,  to  say  that  it  fails  to  fit  a  man  for 
the  "  struggle  of  life."  If  the  phrase  means  the 
making  of  a  living,  this  objection  certainly 
seems  not  well  founded.  Any  one's  daily  ob 
servation  of  common  life  will  enable  him  to 
answer  the  question  whether  or  not  liberally 
educated  men  are,  relatively  to  the  rest  of  the 
community,  making  a  comfortable  living. 
When,  however,  we  come  to  notice  that  some 
of  those  who  are  fondest  of  this  complaint 
against  the  college  course,  on  their  own  ac 
count,  do  not  seem  to  stand  in  any  conspicu* 


304  Education 

ous  need  of  a  living,  we  are  led  to  suspect  that 
they  may  mean  something  else  by  the  "  struggle 
of  life."  Perhaps  some  mean  by  this  phrase  the 
strife  for  sudden  wealth,  or  for  political  office, 
prizes  for  which,  in  fact,  a  good  deal  of  violent 
"  struggling "  is  done.  So  far  from  inciting 
men  to  any  such  feverish  struggle,  it  may  be 
hoped  that  the  higher  education  will  always 
raise  them  above  the  disposition  for  it,  or  the 
temptation  to  it.  Public  reputation  and  public 
office  should,  we  are  beginning  once  more  to 
believe,  "  seek  the  man  ;  "  and  they  may  be 
depended  on  to  find  him  as  fast  as  he  deserves 
them.  If  not  in  the  scramble  and  struggle  of 
certain  ignoble  regions  of  effort,  at  least  in  the 
legitimate  pursuit  of  any  dignified  career,  men 
succeed  in  the  long  run  by  means  of  their 
character  and  intelligence ;  and  the  more  com 
pletely  these  have  been  developed,  the  surer 
the  success.  Such  a  completeness  the  present 
college  course  is  generally  admitted  to  have  an 
observed  tendency,  at  least,  to  produce. 

However  much  it  may  lack  of  perfection, 
the  common  criticisms  upon  it  seem  wide  of 
the  mark  :  whether  it  be  the  charge  that  there 
are  not  enough  electives  for  every  possible 
taste  or  bent ;  or  that  the  studies  are  not  prac 
tical  enough ;  or  that  they  fail  to  fit  a  man  for 
the  "struggle  of  life."  For  these  complaints 


Should  a  College  Educate?        305 

are  all  based  on  the  same  fundamental  miscon 
ception,  the  supposition,  namely,  that  the  pur 
pose  of  the  college  is  merely  to  equip  the  man ; 
when  in  reality  its  purpose  is,  first  of  all,  to 
evolve  the  man.  They  all  overlook  this  cen 
tral  idea  of  the  higher  education :  that  its  aim 
is  not  merely  to  add  something  to  the  man 
from  without,  as  convenience  or  equipment; 
but  to  produce  a  certain  change  in  him  from 
within  as  growth  and  power.  The  misconcep 
tion  seems  all  the  more  short-sighted,  in  that 
it  fails  to  perceive  that  the  most  valuable 
equipment  for  any  work  whatever  that  may 
afterward  be  undertaken  is  found  in  this  very 
breadth  and  depth  of  preparatory  develop 
ment. 

Two  permanent  human  desires,  on  the  sur 
face  antagonistic,  but  at  bottom  perfectly  re 
concilable,  have  all  along  been  at  work  in 
moulding  systems  of  education.  One  is  the 
desire  to  be  much,  or  the  desire  for  attainment ; 
the  other  is  the  desire  to  get  much,  or  the 
desire  for  acquisition.  As  we  look  at  young 
people,  we  find  that  we  have  both  these  desires 
for  their  future.  We  would  l\ave  them  amount 
to  a  great  deal,  in  themselves  :  we  may  call 
this  our  aspiration  for  them  ;  and  we  would 
have  them  get  on  in  life  :  we  may  call  this  our 
ambition  for  them.  As  we  look  at  the  commu- 


306  Education 

nity  we  feel  these  same  two  desires  :  we  would 
have  it  a  community  of  wise  and  noble  per 
sons  ;  and  we  would  have  it  a  prosperous  com 
munity. 

Now  our  educational  work  has  taken  on  one 
character  or  another,  according  as  aspiration  or 
ambition  has  been  most  prominently  in  mind. 
Some,  perceiving  that  we  are  all  "  people  of 
whom  more  might  have  been  made,"  have  been 
most  impressed  with  the  importance  of  lifting 
men's  personal  lives  to  higher  planes.  Others 
have  felt  most  the  need  of  equipping  men  for 
special  efficiency  in  the  various  callings  of  life. 
Not  the  college  only,  but  the  entire  field  of 
education,  from  kindergarten  to  university,  has 
been  a  battle-ground  where  these  two  ideas, 
unwisely  supposing  themselves  natural  foes, 
have  continually  fought.  But  both  these  de 
sires  are  in  the  right.  Seen  in  the  larger  view 
there  is  no  possible  casus  belli  between  them. 
They  are  reconciled  the  moment  it  is  seen  to 
be  true  that  the  completest  development  is 
itself  the  most  valuable  equipment. 

Fortunately,  the  colleges  have  for  the  most 
part  taken  this  larger  view,  and  have  cour 
ageously  kept  their  courses  in  accord  with  it, 
in  spite  of  efforts  from  outside  to  warp  them 
from  their  true  purpose  of  providing  an  educa 
tion  for  men,  to  that  of  providing  an 


Should  a  College  Educate  ?        307 

for  them  •  and  corresponding  efforts  to  have 
the  educative  studies  removed,  and  occupative 
studies  substituted  in  their  stead. 

That  the  college  course  will  be  further  im 
proved,  as  it  has  been  constantly  improving  in 
the  past,  no  one  can  doubt.  The  important 
thing  is  that  changes,  when  they  are  made, 
should  be  made  with  a  clear  understanding  of 
the  purpose  of  the  college,  and  in  furtherance 
of  this.  It  would  not  be  best  (if,  once  more,  a 
violently  absurd  example  may  be  pardoned) 
that  Eskimo  should  be  substituted  for  Greek 
on  a  vicious  and  sophistical  ground;  such  as, 
for  instance,  that  a  young  man  might  some 
time  go  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Greenland, 
and  might  find  it  a  convenient  language  to 
have.  Nor  should  practice  on  the  guitar  be 
substituted  for  literary  exercises,  on  any  such 
ground  as  that  it  is  well  received  in  society, 
and,  for  purposes  of  instruction  in  the  female 
seminaries,  might  at  any  moment  be  a  valuable 
equipment  for  the  struggle  of  life. 

The  greatest  advance  in  college  work  is 
probably  to  be  expected  from  improved  meth 
ods  of  treatment,  rather  than  from  radical 
changes  of  the  subjects  of  the  course.  Much 
of  the  elementary  work  in  the  languages,  both 
ancient  and  modern,  will  no  doubt  eventually 
be  relegated  to  the  lower  schools.  More  and 


308  Education 

more  the  classics  will  be  taught  as  literatures. 
The  same  change,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  some 
time  invade  even  the  modern  language  courses, 
so  that  they  will  have  less  of  the  Ollendorff 
character,  the  mere  conversational  drill,  con 
ceived  as  being  useful  or  ornamental  for  the 
"struggle,"  and  more  of  the  character  of  an 
intellectual  study  of  the  modern  European 
mind  in  its  history  and  literature.  So  also  in 
the  natural  sciences,  the  lower  schools  will 
doubtless  one  day  do  a  large  part  of  what  now 
the  colleges  are  doing ;  much  of  that  mere 
observation  and  memory,  namely,  which  is  not 
beyond  the  capacity  of  the  ordinary  boy  or 
girl  of  high-school  age. 

One  college  study  there  is,  in  particular, 
which  may  be  expected  to  make  great  advances 
in  its  scope  and  methods.  It  is  a  study  which 
has  for  a  long  time  appeared  on  all  the  cata 
logues,  but  which,  so  far  as  any  adequate  de 
velopment  is  concerned,  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
This  study,  the  History  of  English  Literature, 
has  too  largely  consisted  in  the  mere  memo 
rizing  of  disconnected  facts  and  dates  as  found 
in  some  one  or  two  text-books.  And  so  far  as 
the  real  authors  of  our  literature  have  been 
studied  at  all,  it  has  been  with  much  too  exclu 
sive  a  regard  to  philology.  Even  in  this  com 
paratively  superficial  aspect  of  the  subject,  its 


Should  a  College  Educate  ?        309 

study  has  been  confined,  commonly,  to  a  few 
poets  of  the  early  period.  The  outside  shell 
of  literature,  the  language,  has  been  taught 
with  much  acumen  and  nice  scholarship ;  but 
the  substance,  the  thing  itself,  has  been  neg 
lected.  It  remains  to  be  seen  what  educating 
force  there  will  prove  to  be  in  the  proper  study 
of  this  subject  when  it  shall  include  the  history 
of  English  thought,  of  which  English  literature 
is  only  the  expression  ;  and  when  it  shall  bring 
the  student  face  to  face  with  the  best  minds  of 
modern  as  well  as  of  ancient  times. 


JLife 

WANTED  — A   FRIEND 

hear  of  people's  seeking  by  public 
advertisement  for  a  suitable  partner 
in  marriage,  but  who  ever  .heard  of 
any  one's  advertising  for  a  friend  ?  Yet  why 
not?  Every  one,  it  is  likely,  has  in  mind  some 
more  or  less  vague  ideal  of  the  absolutely 
perfect  comrade.  May  he  not  be  supposed 
to  exist  somewhere,  and  to  be  in  the  habit 
of  reading  a  daily  newspaper  or  a  monthly 
magazine  ?  Go  to !  let  us  seek  him,  then, 
by  appropriate  advertisement.  Something  in 
this  wise  would  it  run  ?  "  WANTED,  a  Friend  ! 
The  undersigned,  having  existed  in  compar 
ative  solitude  long  enough  to  experience  a 
pretty  keen  desire  for  '  some  one  to  whom  to 
say,  "  How  sweet  is  solitude  !  "  '  and  having  as 
yet  met  no  one  who  exactly  satisfies  his  idea, 
would  beg  hereby  to  announce  his  need.  The 
applicant  must  be  rather  old,  in  order  to  be 
fitted  to  give  advice  —  a  limited  amount  of  it 


Wanted  — A  Friend  311 

—  wisely ;  and  at  the  same  time  rather  young, 
in  order  to  receive  it  in  liberal  quantity  and  in 
a  meek  frame  of  mind.  He  must  be  of  medium 
height,  intellectually,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of 
robust  spiritual  health.  A  written  guarantee 
must  be  given  of  freedom  from  all  contagious 
defects  of  character.  He  must  be  a  thoroughly 
disillusioned  and  *  advanced '  person,  and  yet 
be  able  to  sympathize  with  any  little  illusions 
or  superstitions  of  the  subscriber.  His  heart 
must  be  full  of  love  for  men  in  the  abstract, 
but  entirely  devoid,  as  yet,  of  affection  for  any 
particular  one  of  them.  He  should,  however, 
be  able  to  exhibit  satisfactory  scars  of  early 
love-affairs,  and  a  more  or  less  scorched  aspect 
of  spirit  from  some  previous  period  of  welt- 
schmerz.  Thus  he  will  be  ready  to  shed  furtive 
tears  at  any  pathetic  fragments  of  autobiogra 
phy  the  subscriber  may  mingle  in  his  conversa 
tion.  He  will  also  be  expected  to  look  unut 
terable  things  when  his  own  past  in  general  is 
alluded  to,  but  never  to  mention  any  of  it  in 
tiresome  detail.  His  memory  must  be  enriched 
with  portions  of  the  subscriber's  writings,  which 
he  will  quote  on  frequent  occasions  with  a  happy 
spontaneity ;  and  he  must  hold  the  unbiased 
opinion  that  his  friend  is  the  greatest  violin 
amateur,  marine  painter,  poet,  polo  player,  and 
master  of  English  prose  style  of  our  own  or  any 


312  Life 

other  time.  He  must  be  on  similar  intimate 
terms  with  several  other  equally,  or  almost 
equally,  important  personages,  whose  private 
affairs  he  will  communicate,  and  whom  he  will 
backbite  to  the  subscriber  in  an  entertaining 
manner.  The  applicant  must  undertake  that, 
when  they  dine  together  at  restaurants,  he  will 
never  order  the  viands,  in  return  for  which 
concession  he  will  from  time  to  time  be  per' 
mitted  to  pay  the  bill.  In  walking  on  public 
streets,  the  applicant  will  carry  his  face  well 
turned  round  and  his  ears  pricked  up  toward 
the  subscriber,  so  as  to  hear  him  easily  without 
forcing  him  to  deviate  from  the  fixed  carriage 
of  his  own  head,  so  necessary  to  his  conception 
of  himself  as  a  masterful  and  positive  charac 
ter.  The  same  rule  will  be  adhered  to  in  con 
versing  together  in  the  cars,  especially  when 
the  subscriber  chooses  to  keep  his  own  face 
turned  away  toward  the  window,  and  still  to 
continue  speaking  in  his  ordinary  low  and  dig 
nified  tone  of  voice.  The  applicant  must  have 
inherited  or  acquired  a  fondness  for  hearing 
manuscript  read,  and  will  never  commit  the 
indiscretion  of  attempting  to  read  any  of  his 
own.  For  this  and  other  good  reasons,  — 
N.  B.,  —  no  person  of  the  literary  class  need 
apply." 

Yet,  seriously,  if  one  cannot  exactly  publish 


Wanted  —  A  Friend  313 

an  advertisement  for  the  purpose,  might  there 
not  be  ways,  open  to  persons  even  of  the  most 
sensitive  taste,  of  extending  the  possibilities  of 
intimate  human  relations  beyond  the  small 
circle  of  haphazard  association  ?  It  is  a  curi 
ous  thing  to  reflect  on,  that  this  connection  of 
two  persons  in  friendship,  while  it  is  one  of 
the  most  important  facts  in  their  lives,  is  one 
of  the  things  left  most  completely  to  chance. 
We  do  not  go  out,  some  fine  morning,  and 
examine  all  the  diverse  characters  in  our  envi 
ronment,  and  deliberately  choose  this  or  that 
one  for  a  friend.  It  is  left  rather  to  mere 
"  accident,  blind  contact,  or  strong  necessity  of 
loving."  A  natural  reason  for  this,  it  may  be 
said,  is  that  the  case  of  friendship  is  unique 
among  human  relations  in  the  fact  that  the 
choice  must  necessarily  be  mutual.  It  would 
be  awkward,  that  is  to  say,  if,  after  making  a 
deliberate  examination  of  the  whole  field,  we 
should  choose,  and  not  be  chosen.  Another 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  wisely  making  a  free 
selection  among  any  great  number  of  persons  is 
that,  after  all,  however  wide  our  circle  may  hap 
pen  to  be,  it  is  only  wide  relatively  to  circles 
which  are  very  narrow.  The  largest  round  of 
acquaintance  has  but  a  small  circumference  in 
the  great  mass  of  humanity.  With  the  greatest 
number  of  those  included,  moreover,  it  covers 


314  Life 

but  a  "speaking  acquaintance."  The  most 
experienced  and  the  most  widely  circulated  of 
us  have  been  able  to  "  summer  and  winter " 
but  a  very  few  people.  Sometimes  I  think  the 
only  men  I  really  know  are  those  who  were  in 
college  with  me.  This  is  not  on  the  principle 
"  in  vino  veritas"  but  on  another  principle  that 
might  well  be  embodied  in  a  Latin  maxim,  if  it 
is  not,  "  in  juventute  veritas ; "  which  is  not 
quite  the  same  as  saying  that  "  children  and 
fools  speak  the  truth."  This  is  probably  the 
real  reason,  by  the  way,  that  all  through  life 
there  are  never  any  friends  like  the  college 
friends,  —  there  are  never  any  whom  we  know 
so  through  and  through ;  and  out  of  perfect 
knowledge  comes  the  only  perfect  trust. 

Whatever  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  a 
wider  reach  of  friendships,  it  does  not  seem 
reasonable  that  we  should  be  so  shut  up  to  the 
small  geographical  limitations  of  our  village  or 
city,  or  "  set."  Why  might  not  people  seek 
out  friends  for  their  friends  ?  There  would  be 
nothing  odious  about  that  sort  of  match-mak 
ing.  I  know  and  love  a  man  in  California,  for 
example,  who  is  just  suited  to  a  man  I  know 
and  love  in  Berlin.  Why  do  I  not  bring  them 
together  ?  When  one  prints  a  book,  or  even  a 
magazine  article,  and  some  kindred  spirit, 
hitherto  unknown,  is  courageous  enough  to 


Wanted  — A  Friend  315 

follow  his  sensible  first  impulse  (instead  of  let 
ting  that  sullen  goblin,  the  sober  second 
thought,  fling  cold  water  all  over  it),  and  writes 
to  say  he  likes  it,  why  may  not  this  sometimes 
be  followed  up,  and  become  the  basis  of  some 
thing  worth  while?  (Of  course  there  are  al 
ways  ear-marks  in  any  such  letter,  to  distin 
guish  that  of  him  who  writes  because  he  likes 
your  thought  and  that  of  him  who  writes  be 
cause  he  likes  to  say  so.)  In  some  such  ways 
the  half-souls  that  Plato  tells  about  might  find 
their  other  halves.  Or  the  quarter-souls  might 
find  their  other  three  quarters ;  for  was  not 
Plato's  idea  inadequate  to  the  fact  as  to  most 
of  us,  who  need  a  group  of  at  least  three  oth 
ers  to  make  a  complete  and  satisfying  integer 
of  companionship  ? 

It  is  an  interesting  and  yet  after  all  a  melan 
choly  reflection  that  very  likely,  at  this  identi 
cal  instant,  there  is  sitting  down  to  a  dinner- 
table  in  London,  or  putting  on  his  gloves  in 
Munich,  or  walking  through  the  Common  in 
Boston,  a  person  who  is  more  nearly  akin  to 
ourselves,  and  more  fitted  in  every  way  to  be 
our  dearest  friend,  than  any  one  of  those  whom 
chance  has  hitherto  thrown  in  our  way.  For 
it  was  chance  —  or  (if  we  do  not  like  the  impli 
cations  of  that  word)  the  concatenation  of 
causes  uncontrolled  by  our  own  volition  —  that 


316  Life 

determined  our  closest  friendship,  whatever  it 
is.  At  the  very  moment  we  first  took  that 
hand,  some  other  hand,  for  aught  we  know, 
may  have  brushed  by,  at  no  greater  distance, 
on  the  other  side,  —  a  hand  that  might,  it  is  as 
likely  as  not,  have  fitted  our  own  better  in 
every  possible  respect.  How  do  I  know,  even 
as  I  write  these  words,  and  dip  my  pen  in  the 
ink,  and  pause,  but  a  letter  has  been  addressed 
in  Calcutta  or  Stockholm  which,  had  it  been 
addressed  to  me,  would  have  renewed  and  illu 
minated  my  whole  future  life  ?  But  the  man 
and  I  are  fated  to  be  strangers.  We  have 
never  met,  shall  never  meet.  There  is  no 
magic  telephone  threading  the  air  between  us  ; 
and,  if  there  were,  we  should  only  exchange 
some  superficial  word.  Nothing  short  of  living 
some  segment  of  life  together  can  make  two 
men  into  friends.  Even  letters  are  of  little 
avail.  The  best  of  our  epistles  do  not  bring 
the  deep  places  of  our  minds  into  communica 
tion.  They  are  hardly  more  than  some  less 
abrupt  species  of  telephonic  "hello." 

But,  for  all  that,  even  the  oldest  and  gnarliest 
of  us  keep  somewhere  a  vague  belief  in  new 
possibilities  of  intercommunion,  and  sometimes 
we  are  moved  to  sing  (under  our  breath)  in 
such  wise  as  this  following  :  — 


Wanted— A  Mend  317 


TO   THE   UNKNOWN   SOUL 

0  soul,  that  somewhere  art  my  very  kin, 
From  dusk  and  silence  unto  thee  I  call  I 

1  know  not  where  thou  dwellest :  if  within 
A  palace  or  a  hut ;  if  great  or  small 

Thy  state  and  store  of  fortune ;  if  thou  'rt  sad 
This  moment,  or  most  glad ; 

The  lordliest  monarch  or  the  lowest  thrall. 

But  well  I  know  —  since  thou  'rt  my  counterpart  - 
Thou  bear'st  a  clouded  spirit ;  full  of  doubt 

And  old  misgiving,  heaviness  of  heart 

And  loneliness  of  mind ;  long  wearied  out 

With  climbing  stairs  that  lead  to  nothing  sure, 

With  chasing  lights  that  lure, 
In  the  thick  murk  that  wraps  us  all  about. 

As  across  many  instruments  a  flute 

Breathes  low,  and  only  thrills  its  selfsame  tone, 
That  wakes  in  music  while  the  rest  are  mute, 

So  send  thy  voice  to  me !     Then  I  alone 
Shall  hear  and  answer ;  and  we  two  will  fare 
Together,  and  each  bear 

Twin  burdens,  lighter  now  than  either  one. 


ROMANTIC   DISPOSITIONS 

WHAT  is  the  essential  quality  in  that  view 
of  life  which  we  are  accustomed  to  call  "ro 
mantic  ? "  What  is  it  that  constitutes  yonder 
amiable  friend  of  ours  a  "  romantic  "  person  ? 
What  was  it  about  that  pretty  notion,  expressed 
a  moment  ago,  that  made  us  call  it  a  "  roman 
tic  "  notion  ?  To  begin  with,  it  is  plainly 
something  that  we  regard  with  disfavor.  It 
evidently  implies,  in  a  character,  a  lack  of  good 
sense ;  in  an  idea,  a  lack  of  solid  truth.  Fur 
thermore,  it  appears  to  belong  to  the  region  of 
views  concerning  the  future ;  we  do  not  speak 
of  "  romantic "  ideas  of  what  has  happened, 
but  of  what  will  happen.  A  "  romantic  "  per 
son  is  one  who  indulges  in  "  romantic  "  expec 
tations.  Will  not  this,  then,  answer  for  a  defi 
nition  ?  A  romantic  disposition  is  a  disposition 
to  expect  ends  without  means ;  a  romantic  no 
tion  is  a  notion  that  the  desirable  thing  will 
somehow  happen,  without  our  having  made  any 
adequate  provision  for  it.  This  use  of  the 
word  originated,  of  course,  from  the  term 
romances ;  the  idea  being  that  things  in  real  life 


Romantic  Dispositions  319 

may  be  expected  to  turn  out  as  they  do  in  the 
story-books.  We  must  not  make  the  mistake 
of  supposing  that  the  romances  are  therefore 
responsible  for  the  prevalence  of  romantic  no 
tions.  If  there  is  a  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
here  at  all,  it  is  the  other  way  round.  The 
irrational  views  of  life  in  the  story-books  have 
always  had  their  origin  in  the  perennial  roman 
ticism  of  the  human  mind. 

For,  if  we  are  willing  to  come  to  the  dissect 
ing-room  for  a  moment,  who  of  us  will  not  be 
found  to  have  his  mind  infested  with  romantic 
ideas  of  life  ?  Dear  youth,  you  step  up  trip 
pingly  to  the  examination,  for  you  have  not  yet 
so  much  as  come  to  the  knowledge  that  there 
are  false  views  of  life,  —  illusions,  idola;.zs 
yet,  whatsoever  impressions  you  find  in  your 
fresh  young  brain  seem  to  you,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  to  be  the  correct,  and  the  only  possible 
correct,  ones.  But,  nevertheless,  as  I  tenderly 
remove  the  os  frontis  and  the  dura  and  the  pia 
mater,  there  come  swarming  out  a  wonderful 
flight  of  preposterous  notions,  thick  as  the 
vague  moth-imps  from  Pandora's  casket.  And 
you,  mature,  world-wise  citizen,  that  have  ar 
rived  at  full  knowledge  of  the  abundant  exist 
ence  of  illusions  in  other  men's  minds,  —  I 
know  you  for  the  sport  of  many  a  delusive 
expectation  ;  there  are  muscce  volitantes  as  big 


320  Life 

as  moons  dancing  aboyt  over  your  wise-look 
ing  eyes.  And  even  you,  too,  my  ancient 
Jacques,  my  self-confident  old  cynic,  —  we  un 
derstand  why  you  have  found  life  a  perpetual 
disappointment :  it  is  because  you  have  per 
petually  expected  some  metaphysical  fourth 
dimension  of  happiness  to  develop  itself  spon 
taneously  in  your  affairs. 

But  Francis  Bacon  said  all  this  much  more 
briefly,  and  therefore  much  better.  "  Doth  any 
man  doubt,"  quoth  he,  "that  if  there  were 
taken  out  of  men's  minds  vain  opinions,  flat 
tering  hopes,  false  valuations,  imaginations  as  one 
would,  and  the  like,  but  it  would  leave  the 
minds  of  a  number  of  men  poor  shrunken 
things,  full  of  melancholy  and  indisposition, 
and  unpleasing  to  themselves  ?  "  His  drift  just 
here  is  to  the  point  that  these  unsubstantial 
pith-contents  of  men's  brains  make,  on  the 
whole,  for  contentment  and  agreeable  living. 
But  this  might  well  be  disputed.  In  the  days 
when  the  youngsters  used  to  beset  me  for 
questions  suitable  to  debate  in  their  clubs  and 
societies,  I  wonder  I  never  thought  to  give 
them  this :  Whether  illusions  be  conducive  to 
happiness.  Bacon,  it  should  be  noted,  takes 
care  to  say  just  afterward,  "  But  howsoever 
these  things  are  thus  in  men's  depraved  judg 
ments  and  affections,  yet  truth  ...  is  the  sover- 


Romantic  Dispositions  321 

eign  good  of  human  nature."  So  that  after 
all  the  boys  might  quote  the  philosopher  on 
both  sides  of  their  question. 

"Flattering  hopes"  "imaginations  as  one 
would"  —  I  have  italicized  these  as  belonging 
especially  to  the  brain-pith  of  the  romantic  dis 
position.  Do  we  not  know  them  very  well,  and 
recognize  them  as  we  lean  carefully  over  the 
edge  of  our  mind  and  peer  down  into  the  dark 
mirror  of  our  own  consciousness  ?  —  the  hope 
to  have  friends  without  being  friendly,  and  to 
be  loved  without  being  lovely ;  the  hope  to  be 
come  famous  without  ever  producing  "works 
meet  for "  fame-winning ;  the  hope  to  be  rich 
without  the  work  or  the  wit  to  effect  it,  or  any 
reliable  lien  on  luck  that  should  be  trusted  to 
help  ;  the  hope  that  she  —  some  definite  or 
some  "  not  impossible  she  "  —  will  fall  into  our 
arms,  unwooed  and  unwon,  like  a  ripe  apple 
into  a  basket  left  accidentally  under  the  tree. 
"Flattering hopes,"  because  they  all  imply  that 
we  are  somehow  favorites  of  the  Powers,  ex 
ceptions  to  the  laws  of  inertia  and  gravitation. 
"  Imaginations  as  one  would"  —  not  only  the 
dreaming  of  what  we  wish  things  were  (which 
would  be  a  harmless  enough  amusement),  but 
the  dreaming  that  things  are  as  we  wish  them, 
—  this  marks  well  the  distinction  between  the 
positive  or  scientific  mind  and  the  fanciful  or 


322  Life 

romantic  mind.  The  one  tries  to  imagine  how 
things  really  are ;  the  other  tries  to  imagine 
things  as  they  are  not  and  cannot  be. 

There  are  two  little  old  tales  that  I  like,  as 
illustrating  romantic  expectations  in  common 
life  :  one,  of  the  rustic  lad,  who  was  sent  to  sell 
a  load  of  pumpkins  in  the  city,  and  who  re 
turned  at  night  with  his  cart  still  heaping  full, 
reporting  that  he  had  driven  through  all  the 
streets,  and  nobody  had  said  a  word  to  him 
about  pumpkins  ;  the  other,  of  the  dairy-maid, 
who  sat  all  day  in  the  middle  of  the  field  upon 
her  milking-stool,  and  "  not  a  cow  came  up  to 
be  milked." 

It  is  a  mark  of  a  great  poet  when  we  find 
universal  life-truths  crystallized  into  a  few  lines 
of  a  poem,  possibly  for  the  first  time,  or  cer 
tainly  never  so  well  expressed  before.  In  the 
"  Spanish  Gypsy,"  Fedalma  is  seated  on  a  bank 
in  mournful  meditation,  when  Hinda  comes  to 
bring  her 

"  A  branch  of  roses  — 

So  sweet,  you  '11  love  to  smell  them.     'T  was  the  last. 
I  climbed  the  bank  to  get  it  before  Tralla, 
And  slipped  and  scratched  my  arm.     But  I  don't  mind. 
You  love  the  roses — so  do  I.     I  wish 
The  sky  would  rain  down  roses,  as  they  rain 
From  off  the  shaken  bush.     Why  will  it  not  ? 
Then  all  the  valley  would  be  pink  and  white 
And  soft  to  tread  on.  .  .  . 


Romantic  Dispositions  323 

Over  the  sea,  Queen,  where  we  soon  shall  go, 
Will  it  rain  roses  ? 

"  Fedalma.     No,  my  prattler,  no ! 
It  never  will  rain  roses :  when  we  want 
To  have  more  roses,  we  must  plant  more  trees" 

Is  there  anywhere  in  literature  so  perfect  a  pic 
ture  of  the  romantic  and  the  positive  disposi 
tions  of  mind  ? 


THE  GOOD  THINGS  OF  OUR  FRIEND 
AS   HIS   COMPENSATIONS 

OF  course  unreasonable  people  must  neces 
sarily  be  more  or  less  unhappy.  The  moon  is 
always  there  in  plain  sight,  and  nobody  to 
bring  it  to  their  hand.  But  it  seems  as  if  rea 
sonable  people,  in  the  absence  of  acute  pain  or 
especial  disaster,  might  contrive  to  be  reason 
ably  happy.  The  very  phrase  contains  the  lim 
itation  :  happy,  that  is  to  say,  up  to  the  point 
that  sound  reason  could  expect,  considering 
the  inevitables,  —  the  conditions,  as  it  were  of 
the  lease. 

One  of  the  medicinal  truths  that  would  seem 
obvious  to  any  such  reasonable  person,  and  yet 
one  that  we  are  apt  to  lose  sight  of,  is  this  : 
The  good  thing  that  our  friend  enjoys  is  only 
his  particular  compensation.  We  forget,  or  we 
never  have  perceived,  the  otherwise  intolerable 
ills  of  his  situation.  Seeing  only  the  compen 
sation,  we  think  it  ought  to  make  him  perfectly 
happy.  We  are  certain  it  would  make  us 
happy,  if  we  had  it. 

My  city  friend,   for  example,  makes  me  a 


The  Good  Things  of  our  Friend    325 

three  days'  visit.  I  take  him  on  my  three 
favorite  walks.  The  first  day  we  go  through 
the  gorge  of  the  river.  The  stream,  glad  to  be 
done  with  its  work  in  the  village  mills,  goes 
dancing  down  through  a  deep,  rocky  ravine. 
Dark  hemlocks  lean  from  the  cliffs,  and  others 
below  cling  with  their  writhen  roots  to  huge 
cubical  blocks  of  sandstone,  fallen  in  the  frosts 
of  a  thousand  winters.  Alders,  feathery  birches, 
and  the  white  stems  of  sycamores  catch  the 
sunshine  and  brighten  the  interspaces.  Mosses 
and  ferns  soften  the  outlines  of  the  jagged 
rocks.  It  is  early  autumn,  and  the  gay  colors 
of  unfallen  leaves  streak  the  whole  length  of 
the  ravine,  with  the  shadowy  hemlock  for  con 
trast;  and  the  river,  rich  brown  with  recent 
rains,  streams  along  like  a  curving  stripe  in 
some  splendid  a'gate.  When  the  south  wind 
comes  soughing  up  the  gorge,  it  is  all  one 
solemn  song,  with  river  voices  and  forest  voices 
commingled.  "  Ah  !  "  exclaims  my  city  friend ; 
"  if  I  could  have  a  retreat  like  this  within  ten 
minutes'  walk  of  the  ager  compascuus  at  home 
in  Botolfium ! " 

The  second  day  I  take  him  to  the  little  silver 
lake  that  lies  like  a  mirror  in  its  oval  frame  of 
woodlands.  We  approach  it  through  a  country 
lane,  between  fields  of  ripened  corn.  There  is 
a  fragrance  of  apples  from  farm  orchards,  and 
we  seem  to  see  Keats's  "  Autumn," 


326  Life 

"  Sitting  careless  on  a  granary  floor, 
Her  hair  soft-lifted  by  the  winnowing  wind, 
Or  on  a  half-reaped  furrow  sound  asleep, 
Drowsed  with  the  fume  of  poppies,  while  her  hook 
Spares  the  next  swath  and  all  its  twined  flowers." 

The  ruddy  western  sun  throws  a  long  slant  of 
shadow  from  the  woods  that  come  close  down 
to  one  sandy  margin,  keeping  off  the  wind,  and 
reflecting  darkly  in  a  reach  of  water  so  smooth 
as  to  be  almost  invisible.  From  the  centre 
across  to  the  opposite  shore  the  breeze  con 
tinually  casts  and  draws  its  net  of  darkling  rip 
ples.  On  its  stilt,  at  the  upper  end  of  the  lake, 
a  white  crane  stands  motionless,  and  now  and 
then  a  young  bass  flips  winking  out  of  the 
glassy  water,  as  if  to  dare  him  from  his  statu 
esque  repose.  "  Ah  !  "  exclaims  my  friend 
again  ;  "  if  I  only  had  this  in 'place  of  the  hal 
lowed  but  somewhat  unexciting  Lacus  Rara- 
rum!" 

The  third  day  we  go  the  Great  Woods,  — 
woods  of  such  trees  as  can  be  seen  only  here 
in  the  Middle  West,  near  the  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Weary.  A  mere  New  Englander  can 
never  see  at  home  such  stately  forest  growth  : 
white  oaks,  and  hickories,  and  chestnuts,  and 
pepperidges,  and  tulip-trees.  The  long  aisles, 
carpeted  with  the  first  bright  fallen  leaves, 
stretch  far  away  among  straight  and  towering 


The  Good  Things  of  our  Friend    327 

columns.  Shafts  of  low  and  mellowed  sun 
shine  light  up  other  aerial  aisles ;  here  tracing 
the  sharp  shadow  of  an  oak  spray  against  a 
smooth  beech  bole,  there  gilding  the  already 
golden  yellow  of  a  hickory-top,  or  just  flicking 
a  quick  red  squirrel  as  he  leaps  from  the  side 
branch  of  his  chestnut-tree  larder  to  that  of  his 
oak-tree  bedroom.  For  a  moment  it  is  perfectly 
still,  and  you  hear  a  nut  drop,  and  a  chipmunk 
pipe  his  shrill  claim  to  its  possession.  Then 
a  breeze  rustles  the  top  of  a  pepperidge,  and 
tosses  out  and  down  an  armful  of  crimson 
leaves.  "  Ah  !  "  sighs  my  friend ;  "  if  we  could 
only  have  all  this  on  the  daustrum  molare  ! " 

/  have  vexations,  hindrances,  depths  of 
dumps,  with  such  surroundings?  He  would 
not  be  able  to  believe  it,  if  I  should  hint  at 
such  a  thing. 

By  and  by,  when  the  "  winter  of  our  discon 
tent  "  is  well  settled  down  upon  these  rustic 
regions,  I  pay  my  friend,  in  turn,  a  visit  of 
three  days  in  Botolfium.  He  feasts  me  on  pic 
ture-galleries  ;  he  leaves  me  blissfully  buried  for 
half  a  day  in  the  Minervan  library;  he  elec 
trifies  me  with  intellectual  company ;  he  intoxi 
cates  me  with  the  symphony  concert.  "  Oh  !  " 
I  exclaim  to  myself ;  "  if  these  things  but  grew 
at  home  in  the  woods  of  the  Conservatio  Occi- 
dentalis  !  He  unhappy  here  ?  Impossible  !  " 


328  Life 

But  when  I  come  to  reflect,  I  am  aware  that 
he,  too,  probably  has  infelicities  that  he  could 
hardly  bear  but  by  the  assuagement  of  these 
very  compensations.  He  would  most  likely 
tell  me  that  it  is  only  by  the  hardest  discipline, 
even  with  the  pictures,  and  the  books,  and  the 
brains,  and  the  orchestra,  that  he  can  put  up 
with ,  and ,  and ! 

If  only  the  world  could  have  been  so  con 
structed  as  to  let  us  enjoy  other  people's  com 
pensations,  without  the  ills  for  which  they 
compensate !  Then, 

"  This  earth  had  been  the  Paradise 

It  never  looked  to  human  eyes, 

Since  Adam  left  his  garden  yet." 


CHOOSING  A  CLASS  OF  PEOPLE  FOR 
EXTERMINATION 

IN  the  midst  of  a  queer  higglety-pigglety 
dream,  last  night,  I  thought  the  Great  Panjan 
drum  appeared  to  me  with  the  kind  offer  to  have 
some  one  class  of  my  fellow  beings  immediately 
exterminated ;  provided  I  could,  without  tak 
ing  too  much  of  his  valuable  time,  decide  which 
particular  class  it  should  be.  Just  seven  min 
utes  were  given  in  which  to  make  and  announce 
the  decision.  Of  course  I  accepted  with  alac 
rity,  and  at  once  hastened  to  run  over  in  my 
mind  such  of  the  obnoxious  varieties  of  human 
nature  as  could  most  speedily  be  recalled.  At 
first  I  thought  I  would  select  the  people  who  do 
not  answer  letters ;  but  I  reflected  that  some 
times  we  write  letters  in  haste,  which  had  better 
be  answered  at  leisure,  long  leisure,  or  even  not 
at  all,  on  the  principle  that  the  least  said,  soon 
est  mended.  Then  I  dallied  for  a  moment 
with  the  idea  that  it  should  be  those  who,  hear 
ing  us  say  things  in  joke,  straightway  report 
them  as  things  said  in  earnest.  Surely,  thought 
I  to  myself,  we  can't  go  amiss  in  having  this 


330  Life 

venomous  species  obliterated !  But  as  the 
genial  destroyer  looked  at  his  watch  a  little 
impatiently,  I  hurriedly  recollected  certain 
other  deserving  candidates.  There  were  those 
who  always  allow  for  everybody  else's  being 
late  at  appointments,  and  so  afflict  the  punc 
tual  soul  with  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  painful 
fidgets ;  and  those  who  send  us  lukewarm 
verses,  with  a  request  for  an  introduction  to 
the  favorable  notice  of  the  editors  of  the  great 
magazines  ;  and  those  who  borrow  tennis-rack 
ets  and  sheet-music ;  and  the  book-store  attend 
ants  who  tag  us  around  with  recommendations 
of  the  latest  inanities;  and  the  botherhood 
[sic\  of  locomotive  engineers  who  agonize  the 
ear  at  night  with  gratuitous  shrieks  as  of  whis 
tling  fiends  ;  and  the  literary  ladies  who  follow 
up  our  plainest  observations  with  praise  of 
how  nicely,  or  prettily,  or  nobly,  or  something, 
it  was  said. 

"  Six  minutes  and  three  quarters,"  whispered 
the  Grand  Panjandrum,  punching  at  me  with 
his  sceptre,  and  knocking  his  little  round  button 
at  top  against  the  ceiling,  as  he  hastily  rose. 
I  made  one  more  rapid  snatch  among  my  recol 
lections  of  people  who  are  with  difficulty  to  be 
endured,  and  cried,  "Take  those  who  carry  a 
perpetual  countenance  of  cold  displeasure,  and 
contrive  to  make  each  member  of  the  house- 


Choosing  People  for  Extermination    331 

hold,  or  the  company,  feel  that  he  is  at  all 
times  the  special  object  of  it !  "  The  depart 
ing  monster  nodded  benignly  over  his  shoulder 
and  winked,  as  who  should  say,  "You  have 
chosen  well ! " 


THE   NOUVEAU   CULTIV£ 

THE  nouveaux  riches,  as  a  class,  have  been  a 
good  deal  before  the  public,  and  their  appear 
ance  and  habits,  both  in  the  wild  state  and 
under  domestication,  are  pretty  familiar  to  all 
keen  observers  of  the  wonders  of  natural  his 
tory.  But  there  is  another  class  in  modern 
society,  equally  noteworthy,  and  in  some  re 
spects  even  more  preposterous  and  disagree 
able,  that  seems  to  have  escaped  classification. 
It  is  that  species  of  person  whom  we  may  de 
nominate  the  nouveau  cultive.  Sprung  from 
illiterate  stock  in  some  uncivilized  region,  he 
has  suddenly  been  plunged  into  an  accidental 
penumbra  of  culture  when  well  along  in  years. 
He  has  been  "  caught  late."  He  has,  accord 
ingly,  a  most  vivid  appreciation  of  those  things 
which  seem  to  him  to  mark  the  difference  be 
tween  his  present  advanced  position  and  his 
previous  backward  state.  The  little  that  he 
now  knows  is  very  conspicuous  to  him  and  to 
his  relatives.  His  faith  in  certain  second-rate 
makers  of  public  opinion,  especially  since  he 
has  traveled  and  has  seen  the  Building  where 


The  Nouveau  Cultiv/  333 

these  powerful  things  are  produced,  is  very 
touching.  He  has  religious  convictions  con 
cerning  the  greatness  of  Washington  Irving 
and  Fitz-Greene  Halleck,  and  perhaps  of 
Young,  Pollock,  and  Mrs.  Hemans.  He  has 
read  that  Jeffrey  said  to  Macaulay,  "  Where  did 
you  get  that  style  ? "  and  he,  too,  wonders 
where  such  a  magnificent  thing  could  have 
been  found.  Sometimes  he  copies  passages,  in 
hopes  to  acquire  it  for  his  own  contributions  to 
the  county  paper.  He  loves  to  quote  from 
"  quaint  old  "  this  one  and  that  one ;  and  has 
bought,  but  not  yet  read,  a  copy  of  Chaucer, 
because,  as  he  is  proud  to  explain  to  his  family, 
he  was  a  "  well  of  English  undefyled."  His 
wife  has  presented  to  him  a  brief  handbook 
of  the  history  of  art,  and  they  have  learned 
a  good  many  of  the  dates.  This  gives  them  a 
contempt  for  the  plain  people  who  like  and 
tack  up  woodcuts  and  still  take  comfort  in 
Christmas-cards.  They  have  read  a  little  of 
"  Dant,"  not  without  some  secret  struggles  with 
the  "  I-talian  "  names  ;  and  greatly  commis 
erate  those  who  have  not  the  advantage  of 
familiarity  with  "Dear's  "  great  illustrations. 

All  this  is  before  the  nouveau  eultiv'e  moves 
to  the  city.  At  that  epoch  the  interesting 
creature  enters  on  a  second  stage  of  develop 
ment,  but  still  very  late.  If  the  first  was  that 


334  Life 

of  the  larva,  this  is  that  of  the  chrysalis ;  but 
it  is  too  far  along  in  the  season  ever  to  pro 
duce  a  perfect  butterfly.  If  the  larva  was 
active  and  aggressive,  the  chrysalis  is  appro 
priately  cold  and  impassive.  It  has  acquired 
a  shell,  and  has  a  glazed  expression  of  counte 
nance,  indicative  of  mysterious  processes  going 
on  within.  The  man  has  mastered  the  code  of 
dress,  equipage,  and  etiquette ;  and  so  lately 
that  he  is  greatly  impressed  with  these  things, 
makes  his  daughters  and  nieces  shed  tears  for 
their  errors,  and  rarely  misses,  himself.  He 
not  only  acquires  the  correct  pronunciation  of 
"  clever"  with  the  genuine  imported  chiar-oscuro 
of  the  final  syllable,  but  he  learns  to  apply  the 
word  to  the  proper  books  and  persons,  and 
does  this  with  almost  painful  frequency.  He 
is  wonderfully  sure  of  the  received  verdicts  on 
works  of  literature  and  art.  If  you  happen  to 
question  any  of  them,  or  intimate  a  preference 
for  some  new  man,  it  is  comical,  and  yet  a  little 
vexing,  for  all  your  philosophy,  to  see  how  your 
lifelong  weariness  of  the  old  orthodox  judg 
ment  is  taken  for  that  ignorance  of  it  from 
which  he  himself  has  so  lately  emerged.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  with  an  exquisitely  bene 
volent  condescension  that  he  gives  you  the  last 
twaddle  as  superseding  your  view  of  some  one 
of  the  immortals. 


The  Nouveau  Cultiv/  335 

There  is,  however,  one  consideration  that 
should  reconcile  us  to  any  and  all  of  the  social 
infelicities  connected  with  the  existence  of  this 
class  of  the  nouveaux  cultives.  It  is  the  fact  of 
the  better  outlook  for  the  next  generation  that 
comes  from  even  the  slightest  lift  to  this.  If 
the  father  only  gets  so  far  as  to  perform  awk 
ward  and  ludicrous  antics  on  the  front  door 
steps  of  culture,  the  children  will  certainly  have 
a  better  chance  of  entering  in  than  if  he  never 
had  come  out  of  the  woods  at  all. 


THE   LEFT-OVER   EXPRESSION   OF 
COUNTENANCE 

THERE  are  certain  humorous  sidewalk  obser 
vations  that  are  open  to  one  as  a  kind  of  com 
pensation  for  having  to  elbow  and  jostle  along 
the  public  ways.  One  of  these  is  the  trick 
people  have  of  looking  at  you  with  the  left-over 
remainders  of  the  expression  of  face  just  be 
stowed  on  the  companion  with  whom  they  are 
walking  and  talking.  A  pair  of  persons  en 
gaged  in  lively  argument  are  approaching  you. 
One  of  them  is  laying  down  the  law  with  great 
vigor  of  facial  and  muscular  gesture.  At  the 
moment  of  brushing  by  he  glances  at  you,  with 
the  ferocious  scowl  of  his  fervid  eloquence  still 
puckering  his  features.  You  would  think  he 
was  your  bitterest  foe.  Of  course  it  would  be 
opposed  to  the  great  law  of  economy  of  force 
to  have  relaxed  and  then  puckered  up  again 
just  for  the  momentary  meeting  of  another 
face.  Perhaps  his  apparatus  of  facial  expres 
sion  is  not  agile  enough  to  have  accomplished 
the  manoeuvre  if  he  had  tried. 

Shortly  after,  you  encounter  Saccharissima 


Left-Over  Expression  of  Countenance    337 

and  Dulcissima,  chatting  and  laughing  together 
as  they  come.  They  are  entire  strangers  to 
you,  but  as  you  pass  you  receive  a  most  capti 
vating  smile,  —  from  both  of  them  this  time, 
as  it  happens,  for  both  are  talking  at  once. 
It  produces  an  effect  like  those  momentary 
streaks  of  warm  air  through  which  one  sud 
denly  walks  on  an  autumn  day. 

Sometimes  you  get  a  mixed  expression,  with 
much  the  effect  of  a  stream  of  warm  and  of  cold 
water  poured  on  the  head  at  the  same  time. 
The  eyes,  which  are  the  more  mobile  portion 
of  the  expressional  apparatus,  will  nimbly  alter 
their  look,  at  the  instant  of  meeting  you,  to 
that  freezing  glance  appropriate  to  the  encoun 
ter  of  an  un-introduced  fellow  creature.  The 
mouth,  meanwhile,  with  its  attendant  cheek- 
curves,  continues  the  companionable  smile, 
thus  bridging  over  the  interruption,  and  allow 
ing  the  conversation  to  go  on  with  its  atmo 
sphere  unchanged. 

Occasionally  it  happens,  however,  that  the 
mixture  was  already  in  the  original  expression. 
We  all  know  that  blood-curdling  look  which 
passes  between  eminently  civil  people,  wherein 
the  eyes  remain  distant  and  stony,  while  the 
unfortunate  mouth  (which  —  for  its  sins,  per 
haps  —  always  has  to  do  the  hypocrisy  for  the 
whole  countenance)  is  forced  to  maintain  an 


338  Life 

expansive  mechanical  smile.  Thus  I  meet,  of 
a  morning,  two  middle-aged  ladies  engaged  in 
polite  exchange  of  views  upon  the  weather. 
Rival  boarding-house  keepers,  possibly.  The 
effect  now  is  quite  complex.  They  are  already 
wearing,  for  each  other,  the  mixed  expression 
referred  to,  and  in  glancing  at  you  each  infuses 
an  additional  drop  of  vitriol  into  the  ocular 
and  adjustable  part  of  her  look.  This  momen 
tary  contact  with  expressions  that  were  in 
tended  for  other  people  is  singularly  noticeable 
on  the  road  in  meeting  open  carriages.  Some 
times  on  a  crisp  afternoon,  when  everybody  is 
out  and  all  are  animated,  it  is  like  encounter 
ing  an  intermittent  running  fire  of  faces  :  some 
real  rifle-shots  (such  as  Emerson  describes), 
and  with  explosive  bullets  at  that ;  others,  the 
mere  sugar-plum  artillery  of  the  Carnival,  — 
and  none  of  them  intended  for  you  particularly. 
It  is  merely  that  you  happen  to  intervene  in 
the  line  of  fire.  An  effect  of  this  sort  is  when 
Vtwo  crowded  open  horse-cars  meet  and  pass. 
Here  you  have,  not  single  shots,  but  the  simul 
taneous  discharge  of  a  whole  battery  of  divers 
facial  howitzers. 

Perhaps  the  oddest  case  of  this  persistence 
of  previous  expressions  is  where  you  have 
stopped  a  moment  to  speak  with  a  lady  on  a 
village  sidewalk.  You  are  only  slightly  ac- 


Left-Over  Expression  of  Countenance    339 

quainted,  and  neither  your  mutual  relation  nor 
the  business  in  hand  calls  for  anything  but  a 
very  indifferent  and  matter-of-fact  cast  of  coun 
tenance.  But  suddenly,  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence,  this  daughter  of  Eve  is  aware  of  a 
favorite  young  gentleman  bowing  and  smiling 
from  a  rapidly  passing  carriage.  Without  mov 
ing  her  head,  —  there  is  not  time  for  that,  — 
but  only  her  eyes,  she  flashes  on  her  vanishing 
friend  a  bewitchingly  intimate  smile.  Then 
she  instantly  looks  back  to  you  and  finishes 
the  business  sentence,  with  the  remains  of  this 
charming  but  now  queerly  incongruous  glance 
fading  out  of  her  face  in  a  most  interesting 
manner.  It  is  like  watching  the  last  tint  of 
sunset  vanishing  from  a  mountain  peak,  or  a 
pretty  little  wave  ebbing  back  on  the  beach,  or 
the  closing  of  a  flower  at  night,  or  the  putting 
up  of  the  shutters  on  the  village  apothecary 
shop  at  bedtime. 

I  remember  an  appalling  instance  of  such  a 
phenomenon  that  occurred  to  me  when  a  child. 
Even  at  this  late  day,  whenever  I  vividly  recall 
the  scene,  it  gives  me  a  chill.  It  was  in  a 
Virgil  class,  and  I  was  a  poor  little  palpitating 
new  scholar.  While  I  was  anxiously  constru 
ing  the  opening  lines  of  the  Dido-in-the-storm 
episode,  the  beetle-browed  master  turned  slyly 
to  a  privileged  older  pupil  with  some  sotto  voce 


340  Life 

schoolmaster's  joke.  As  I  glanced  up,  having 
partly  heard  the  words  without  catching  the 
point,  he  was  just  turning  back  to  me,  with  a 
most  genial  and  winning  smile  sweetening  his 
usually  acid  features.  Innocently,  and  no 
doubt  with  some  timidly  responsive  look  on  my 
face,  I  said,  "  What  ? "  But  on  the  instant  of 
speaking  I  divined  that,  alas  !  the  grin  was  not 
meant  for  me.  It  was  a  case  of  left-over  re 
mainder.  As  it  ceased  to  "  coldly  furnish  forth  " 
his  rapidly  congealing  countenance,  he  bade 
me  in  a  stern  voice  to  "go  on."  It  was  much 
as  if  he  had  cried,  "What  right  havejvw  to  be 
smiling  at  me,  you  miserable  little  sinner  ? " 

But  I  have  known  over-sensitive  persons  of 
larger  growth  to  have  their  disagreeable  mo 
ments  with  these  "  remainder  biscuits "  of  ex 
pression.  For  example,  I  have  an  unhappy 
friend  who  has  all  his  life  been  intermittently 
ridden  with  the  idea  that  he  is  in  some  way 
ridiculous.  I  can  never  find  him  really  happy 
and  at  his  ease  except  in  his  library  or  his 
garden.  The  books  and  the  chickens,  he  says, 
do  not  laugh  at  him.  Whether  it  be  the  effect 
on  his  nerves  of  tea-drinking,  or  of  living  too 
much  alone,  or  of  having  been  brought  up  by 
homespun  people,  to  whom  his  artistic  tastes 
really  did  appear  ridiculous,  and  who  took  no 
pains  to  conceal  the  fact,  —  whatever  the 


Left-Over  Expression  of  Countenance    341 

cause,  there  is  nothing  of  which  he  has  such 
terror  as  the  "laughter  of  fools"  directed 
against  himself.  Lately  I  set  myself  seriously 
to  combat  this  fancy.  I  said,  "  Let  us  go  out 
together  on  the  street,  or  into  company,  and 
see  if  you  can  show  me  any  reliable  instances 
of  people's  laughing  at  you." 

The  first  persons  we  happened  to  encounter, 
after  leaving  the  house,  were  two  sauntering 
schoolgirls,  satchels  on  arm,  maxillaries  active, 
and  one  was  telling  the  other  with  infinite 
secrecy  —  as  if  the  very  lamp-posts  were  sure 
to  be  listening  —  some  wonderful  experience, 
such  as  only  schoolgirls  have.  As  my  friend 
and  I  approached  them,  it  appeared  that  the 
climax  of  the  narrative  had  just  been  reached. 
Glancing  up  at  us  unconsciously,  as  we  met, 
they  continued  to  giggle,  and  passed  on. 
"There!  you  see!"  said  my  friend.  And  I 
had  much  ado  to  convince  him  that  it  was  only 
a  case  of  left-over  expression. 


THE  KEEPER-IN  AND  THE  BLURTER- 
OUT 

Two  good  friends  of  mine  have  now  for 
years  stood  to  my  mind  as  types  of  two  oppo 
site  dispositions  with  regard  to  secretiveness. 
The  one  never  seems  to  say  anything  without 
pausing  first  to  consider  within  himself  whether, 
after  all,  it  might  not  be  better  not  to  say  it. 
The  other  seems  never  to  let  any 

"Craven  scruple 
Of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event" 

hinder  her  from  the  utterance  of  whatever  she 
has  to  say.  The  one  I  call  a  keeper-in  ;  the 
other,  a  blurter-out.  It  has  been  an  interest 
ing  study  with  me  to  observe  these  two  charac 
ters,  and  the  results  of  their  two  methods  both 
on  others  and  on  themselves. 

The  keeper-in  would  appear,  at  first  sight, 
to  have  all  the  wisdom  on  his  side.  He  cer 
tainly  has  the  support  of  all  the  "  little  hoard 
£>f  maxims."  Do  not  the  proverbs  all  preach 
a  sharp  surveillance  of  that  "  unruly  member," 
the  tongue  ?  Did  not  the  Greek  philosopher 
wag  his  hoary  head,  and  aver  that  he  had  often 


The  Keeper-In  and  the  Blurter-Out    343 

been  sorry  for  what  he  had  said,  but  never  for 
what  he  had  refrained  from  saying  ?  Does  not 
George  Sand  testify  that,  in  her  experience, 
words  are  always  dangerous  except  when  they 
are  necessary  ?  And  sings  not  warningly  the 
German  poet,  — 

"  Am  Baum  des  Schweigens  hangt 
Seine  Frucht,  der  Friede  "  ? 

Nevertheless,  I  am  compelled  to  record,  as 
the  result  of  my  own  observations,  the  opinion 
that  the  least  harm  and  the  most  good  have 
come  from  the  method  of  the  blurter-out.  And 
why  not  ?  Are  we  to  admit  that  there  is,  on  the 
whole,  more  evil  than  good  in  people's  minds 
to  be  expressed  ?  Can  we  believe  that "  winged 
words "  are  oftener  envenomed  arrows  than 
bearers  of  good  tidings  ? 

No  doubt  there  is  a  kind  of  confidence  which 
the  keeper-in  inspires  among  his  friends.  We 
know  that  if  we  impart  a  secret  to  him  it  is 
safe.  We  are  sure  that  in  any  deliberative  coun 
cil,  where  a  word  is  to  be  fitly  spoken  only  at  a 
certain  moment,  he  will  not  go  off  semi-retina- 
culum.  If  the  success  of  an  undertaking,  or 
the  peace  of  a  family,  hangs  on  silence,  he  will 
be  "golden  through  and  through."  But  then, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  are  equally  and  sadly 
sure  that  if  there  suddenly  comes  a  crisis  in 
our  affairs,  or  in  public  affairs,  where  a  quick, 


344  Life 

courageous  utterance  is  the  indispensable  thing, 
the  keeper-in  can  be  relied  on  to  fail  to  utter 
it.  It  is  true  that,  in  talking  with  him  at  my 
fireside,  I  can  relate  to  him  with  perfect  confi 
dence  the  good  story  of  my  catching  our  neigh 
bor  at  my  hen-roost ;  but  then,  how  can  I  be 
sure  that  our  neighbor  has  not  been  to  him 
with  just  such  a  merry  tale  (lacking  only  the 
basis  of  fact)  about  me  ?  How  do  I  know  that 
he  esteems  me  as  a  truthful  and  virtuous  man, 
when  I  am  aware  that  he  would  look  me  in  the 
face  with  the  same  inscrutable  repose  of  man 
ner  if  he  suspected  me  of  being  a  liar  and  a 
thief? 

But  with  the  blurter-out,  on  the  contrary,  I 
know  just  what  she  thinks  of  me,  and  just  what 
she  does  not  think  of  me  ;  and  I  know  that  she 
knows  that  I  know,  and  is  glad  of  it.  The 
only  anxiety  she  appears  to  have  is  lest  people 
should  suppose  she  thinks  more  of  them  than 
she  does.  I  have  observed  a  little  stir  of  ap 
prehension  in  a  company  when  she  enters  the 
room,  or  the  conversation.  No  one  knows 
exactly  what  she  may  say  next.  And  it  is  a 
pretty  thing  to  see  the  way  in  which  a  certain 
kindly  relative  of  hers  will  anxiously  bend  for 
ward  as  she  talks,  ready  to  whisper  a  gentle 
and  nudging  "  Now,  Jane  !  " 

I  admit  that  the  keeper-in  avoids  some  awk- 


The  Keeper-In  and  the  Blurter-Out    345 

ward  situations,  and  that  the  blurter-out  gets 
into  a  certain  amount  of  hot  water.  It  might 
be  urged  by  some  that  the  best  course  would 
be  a  happy  mean  between  the  two.  But,  for 
my  part,  I  would  rather  risk  it  on  the  penalties 
of  the  impetuous  truth-teller  than  to  adopt  any 
sort  of  a  happy  mean  that  consists  in  being 
meanly  happy. 


OLD   MORTON 

THE  Middle-Western  village  produces,  or 
confirms  into  inveteracy  when  produced,  many 
a  queer  type  of  character.  In  the  same  way 
that  isolated  valleys  in  mountainous  countries 
develop  and  preserve  distinct  idioms  of  folk- 
speech,  so  do  these  isolated  semi-rustic  regions 
exhibit  odd  dialectic  varieties  of  human  nature. 
One  such  queer  character,  or  "  odd  stick,"  is 
remembered  in  our  village  as  "  Old  Morton." 
Bent  at  a  crooked  right  angle,  weather-stained 
and  storm-beaten,  like  a  sort  of  land  species  of 
ancient  mariner,  gray,  unkempt,  and  his  arid 
face  visibly  consoled  by  perennial  founts  of 
tobacco,  the  old  man  was  wont  to  hobble 
through  the  village  street  about  once  a  day, 
usually  at  mail-time.  For  he,  too,  it  was  clear, 
like  all  the  denizens  of  little  towns,  and  espe 
cially  those  without  either  correspondence  or 
business,  had  always  great  expectations  in  con 
nection  with  the  unknown  possibilities  of  each 
day's  lean  but  punctual  mail-bag.  His  only 
employment  and  means  of  support  consisted  of 
chance  jobs  of  small  joinery  in  a  rickety  little 


Old  Morton  347 

shop  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  in  the  loft  of 
which  was  his  lonely  and  unseen  lair.  There 
never  was  a  more  inoffensive  creature ;  he  was 
very  gentle  with  small  children  and  all  piteous 
dumb  animals ;  but  his  bent-over  face  had  a 
splenetic  gaze  down  at  mother  earth,  —  say, 
rather,  step-mother  pavement,  —  as  he  made 
his  way  along  the  street,  and  his  old  blue 
eyes  looked  up  at  you  with  a  sort  of  protesting 
hostility,  as  if,  in  the  absence  of  a  visible  Pro 
vidence,  he  took  you  for  a  representative  of 
things  in  general  and  accused  you  of  his  fate. 
I  was  comparatively  a  new-comer  in  the  town, 
and  had  never  exchanged  greetings  with  him ; 
but  one  day,  as  I  was  hurrying  across  the  stone 
bridge,  he  met  me,  and  stopped  me  with  the 
paralyzing  exclamation,  "  Ain't  ye  glad  ye  ain't 
old  Morton/"  I  was  never  more  nonplused 
and  put  to  it  for  a  reply.  What  I  did  respond 
was,  "  Who ?  —  I?"  But  whether  this  counter- 
interrogative  of  mine  meant  anything  or  not,  I 
have  never  known.  The  particular  nuance  of 
my  own  inner  consciousness  that  prompted  my 
words  had,  in  my  astonishment,  evaporated 
with  them,  as  I  found  upon  asking  myself  what 
under  the  moon  I  had  meant,  while  I  hurried 
on  my  way.  His  words  I  understood  well 
enough,  and  perhaps  mine  may  have  been 
meant  to  convey  some  sudden  sense  of  my 


348  Life 

small  reason  for  any  such  self-gratulation.  But 
it  is  quite  as  likely  my  mental  breath  was  so 
completely  taken  away  that  I  made  the  re 
sponse  in  entire  idiocy. 

I  learned  afterward  that  it  was  a  habit  of  his 
to  address  this  or  a  similar  question  to  persons 
of  his  acquaintance.  His  constant  idea  seemed 
to  be  that,  whatever  the  apparent  hardness  of 
any  other  mortal's  lot  in  life,  it  ought  to  be  a 
sufficient  consolation  to  him  to  reflect  that, 
after  all,  he  was  not  Old  Morton. 

There  was  philosophy  in  the  reflection,  and 
I  was  glad  to  have  imbibed  it.  In  fact,  what 
right  had  I  to  grumble  and  sulk  about  things, 
so  long  as  I  had  not  the  weak  and  friendless 
old  man's  bent  back,  and  rheumatism,  and 
shattered  nerves,  and  forlorn  abandonment  ? 

Once  I  was  waiting  at  the  provision  store,  on 
some  family  errand  of  "  harmless  necessary," 
soap,  or  sugar,  or  other  village  bricabrac  (such 
as  it  is  the  pleasant  privilege  of  the  literary  man 
of  the  household,  with  his  apparent  plenitude 
of  leisure,  to  purvey),  when  I  saw  the  ancient 
philosopher,  sitting  on  a  cracker  barrel,  and 
gazing  at  a  pair  of  urchins  whose  tow  heads 
barely  reached  the  counter.  There  was  a  kind 
of  quizzical  and  melancholy  tenderness  in  his 
look.  "  There  's  one  good  thing  about  them 
boys ! "  he  exclaimed  with  emphasis,  as  he 


Old  Morton  349 

caught  my  eye.  "  They  won't  neither  one  on 
'em  never  be  Old  Morton!"  And  he  evidently 
felt  that  in  pronouncing  this  decisive  judgment 
he  was,  as  it  were,  a  benignant  oracle,  decree 
ing  them  a  blessed  fate. 


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